Richard Roundtree, June Squibb
“THELMA” My rating: C+ (Hulu)
98 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
There’s much satisfaction to had in the performances of veteran actors June Squibb (age 93) and Richard Roundtree (age 81) in “Thelma.”
Squibb has found stardom late in life, but her work goes back decades (she was one of the strippers in the original 1959 Broadway production of “Gypsy”).
Roundtree, of course, found screen immortality in 1971’s “Shaft.” His death last year adds a touch of haunting melancholy to his work in “Thelma,” his final screen project.
I loved watching them. I wish I liked the film more.
“Thelma,” the feature debut of writer/director Josh Margolin, is clearly a personal work. Margolin based his lead character on his own grandmother and in fact incorporated some of her idiosyncratic speaking style into the movie’s dialogue.
But he cannot find the right balance of emotions and emphasis. “Thelma” veers from goofy comedy to sit-commy family dynamics to crime caper to glum end-of-life meditation. It’s enough to cause whiplash.
The central premise, though, is quite workable. Thelma (Squibb) is scammed out of $10,000 by crooks who call her up pretending to be her grandson in desperate need of bail money. Panicked, Grandma Thelma immediately mails the money to the kid’s “lawyer.”
Of course her grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger) is not in jail. He is, however, a mess — an insecure, sweet-tempered twentysomething man child with no discernible skills or ambitions and a head that has never seen a comb.
But, boy, he loves his Grandma.
Then there’s Danny’s folks, Thelma’s daughter Gail (Parker Posey) and her husband Alan (Clark Gregg), a pair of hovering helicopter do-gooders who are always intruding on Danny and Thelma’s business.
The film’s narrative centers on Thelma’s determination to get her money back. With old friend Ben (Richard Roundtree) as her sidekick, she tools around L.A. on a motorized wheelchair-scooter, sifting clues and staking out the mail drop where her money was sent.
Watching the two solve the mystery is by far the most interesting thing on screen — certainly better than the old-age navel gazing Margolin periodically delivers.
Malcolm McDowell has a nifty last-reel turn as one of the miscreants.
Periodically “Thelma” dives into cuteness and stereotype. Ben is playing Daddy Warlocks in a nursing home production of “Annie” in which all the roles — including Annie and the orphans — are played by senior citizens. He’s got a roommate who is basically a zombie. And a recurring gag involves old folks’ supposed inability to use a computer.
But Squibb and Roundtree? Loved ‘em.
Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds
“DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE” My rating: B+ (Disney +)
128 minutes | MPAA rating: R
I’m so over Marvel movies. It’s not the cost of the ticket…it’s the loss of two-plus hours.
But there is one festering corner of the Marvel Universe where I feel perfectly at home.
I’m talking, naturally, of Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool character, the profane court jester of Stan Lee’s fantasy world, a hideously scarred wiseass who dons a red suit and mask and…well, I was gonna say he fights evil but he’s not nearly that focused. He just likes fighting…the bloodier the better.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is a fantastically entertaining team-up, with Reynolds delivering an endless hilarious arsenal of rude, profane, grotesque pronouncements (he co-wrote the script with Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick), while Hugh Jackman’s sour-tempered Logan snarls and flexes.
It’s a buddy film of unsurpassed crudeness, filled with knowing putdowns of all things Marvel and an insouciant attitude that has the characters often breaking down the fourth wall to comment directly to the viewer.
In other words, “D & W” has it both ways, exhibiting an encyclopedic knowledge of the comic book universe while simultaneously roasting it.
The plot? Well even after seeing the movie I’m not sure. Basically Deadpool resurrects Wolverine (who died at the end of “Logan” back in 2017), and together they are transported by a smug dweeb running the Time Variance Authority (Matthew Macfayden, satirizing his own performance as Tom Wambsgans in “Succession”) to the Void…which is just as unpleasant as it sounds.
There our boys must contend with the universe-destroying plans of Charles Xavier’s long-lost sister Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin, with shaved head). They also run into Marvel superheroes now in exile: Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Blade (Wesley Snipes), Gambit (Channing Tatum) and Johnny Storm (Chris Evans). Listen carefully and you may hear the voices of Nathan Fillion, Blake Lively (aka Mrs. Ryan Reynolds) and Matthew McConaughey.
With the exceptions of some unnecessarily sappy digressions into our two heroes’ tortured pasts, director Sean Levy keeps the yarn churning along at a breakneck pace.
And late in the film he delivers an epic battle between our two protagonists and an army of Deadpool variants that is one of the best action sequences ever. Think “The Wild Bunch” played for laughs.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 