Gaming -- of all sorts -- distinguishes the new sort-of-thriller, Adam Randall's LEVEL UP

One of those ever-more-plentiful what's-going-on-here-and-why? movies, the new would-be thriller/suspense film, LEVEL UP, takes a typically irresponsible male, who would rather spend his time drinking, drugging and gaming than working for a living, and puts him through one hell of a day or so in the service of... what, exactly? Our entertainment, one would guess. But that means you would need to be pretty heavily into gaming yourself before finding worthwhile this over-reaching combo of an early David Fincher film, The Game, and its more recent online cousin, Nerve.

As directed and co-written (with Gary Young) by Adam Randall, shown at left, the movie and its WTF plot seems initially pretty silly before turning serious and then even life-threatening. Our non-hero, Matt (played by Josh Bowman, below, left) gets off on his usual morning of doing damned little but slouching around and maybe playing video games. Then, just after his girlfriend leaves for work, he has his day interrupted by three hooded fellows who do some very naughty things.

And yet, no matter how horrible life becomes for poor Matt, this viewer could not shake the sense that everything going on here was one big, complicated and maybe pointless game. Along the way various scenarios present themselves, coming either via the film itself or perhaps from the several other movies we've seen that have played similar games:

Because his girlfriend has suddenly been kidnapped, Matt must then go all over the place and do all kind of weird things to save her life. Is all this merely the adventures of a poor shnook or schmuck being used for nefarious purposes? Maybe. But, really now, if you want someone killed, would you have to go to this much complicated trouble to do the job?

Or maybe this is some kind of treatise on the evils/perils of too much gaming (as Nerve tried so hard to be)? Or a cautionary tale about how the Internet is taking over our lives? Or could it really be about... surveillance? Or this: After a time of being around a bunch of numbskull males, one begins to wonder if the whole idea and plot has been concocted by a group of women who have grown thoroughly fed up with their dim-bulb men.

Matt's adventures takes him from one oddball place and person to another, and Mr. Bowman, who is in just about every scene in the film, certainly proves to be game. Some of the other males and females have their moments, too. Little by little, that plot begins to offer a few revelations, though nothing that quite pinpoints exactly what is going on. At least not for a very long time.

This is probably for the better, since mysteries are almost always more fun than their resolutions. The movie looks snappy, too; it's well filmed and edited, and the performances are as good as the concept and characters call for. Over all, I could have done without it -- though perhaps I've already seen too many films a little too much like this one. You younger folk may have more patience -- due to having less of a catalog/backlog of movie memories to weigh the film down.

In any case, Level Up -- from filmbuff and running 84 minutes -- will open tomorrow, Friday, August 26, for a week-long run in a dozen theaters in a dozen cities across the country, including  New York (at the Cinema Village), Los Angeles (at the Downtown Independent), and Austin (Alamo Drafthouse, Slaughter Lane). Look for it in Denver, Dallas/Fort Worth, Milwaukee, San Francisco/San Jose, Seattle/Tacoma, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Detroit, too. On September 26, the film will make its nationwide VOD debut.

Blu-ray/DVDebut: Peter Billingsley's smart, enjoyable TERM LIFE gives Vince Vaughn and Hailee Steinfeld a chance to shine

And shine they do, as a troubled, estranged father and daughter who reunite out of necessity, and then bond as he teaches her the tricks of his criminal trade. You may question the morality going on here, but you will have enough fun along the way that you'll probably be willing to let that pass and enjoy TERM LIFE on it own movie-movie terms. As directed by Peter Billingsley (below) and written by Andy Lieberman (from Nick Thornborrow's graphic novel), the film is fleet and often funny, without ever crossing over into "cute."

It's violent, too, but less so than many R-rated movies. Performances are fine down the line, with Vince Vaughn and Hailee Steinfeld (below) particularly effective as the father/daughter combo. Mr. Vaughn has had some ups and downs (more downs of late) in his career, but this film might have set him back on track, had it been given a legitimate theatrical release. But his smart, no-nonsense and very appealing performance should make fans realize anew why they've enjoyed him over the two decades since Swingers.

Speaking of, Jon Favreau makes an appearance here and does well as a sleazy cohort of Vaughn's, while no less than Terrence Howard (below) and Taraji P. Henson (further below) show up smartly in supporting roles.

Basically a heist-gone-south movie coupled to a chase film connected to a parenting tale, the movie's many jolts of humor and its consistently believable and often quite clever dialog carry it along and over very few rough patches.

The villains are played, and well, by Bill Paxton (below) as a really dirty police officer and Spain's Jordi Mollà, shown at bottom, who essays a Mexican drug lord, the death of whose son sets in motion much of the clever plotting.

Taking place in Atlanta, this is the second movie in as many weeks to show us a whole bunch of crazy, crappy Atlanta cops. (Triple 9 was the other one, which is a lot darker but also a good film.) OK, Hollywood: We get your point.

Considering the dreck that makes it into our theaters (often for weeks on end), Term Life (the title refers to the insurance policy the Vaughn character takes out on his own life in order to provide for his daughter) proves a lot more fun and lasts but a swift and engrossing 93 minutes.

From FocusWorld, the movie hit DVD and Blu-ray this past week -- for purchase and/or rental.

THE CALL: Another smart (for awhile) and enjoyable (totally) film from Brad Anderson

Even when it goes off the track in its final quarter, THE CALL still manages to be a lot of fun. Prior to this it has been surpri-singly smart, as well as enjoyable. The latest from not-sung-enough (you can't exactly call him "unsung") director & sometimes writer, Brad Anderson (below), this movie continues his winning streak of creating a fascinating oeuvre in which each film is different (from the mainstream and from each other) but con-sistently engaging.

Take a look at Anderson's resume, and you'll see him jumping from genre to genre as though playing hopscotch, with nary a miss in the bunch. Some films work better than others, but all are well enough conceived and executed to qualify for quality stuff. Comedy to horror, thrillers to character studies, drama to rom-com-cum-sci-fi, Anderson has been there, done that and moved on.

With The Call, the filmmaker has his biggest budget for some time (maybe ever..?), and he's put it to good use. Here we are in the Los Angeles area 911 head-quarters, known as "The Hive," with Halle Berry (on poster, top, and bottom, center), as an operator who's very good but maybe gets a little too close to her callers. After one young woman is abducted and murdered while on the phone with our co-heroine, six months later another young woman (Abigail Breslin, below, right) is kidnapped, and the phone-call-cum-chase is on.

Step by step, the movie is surprisingly adept at keeping us nailed to the screen while making rather good sense (not always a mainstay of the thriller genre) regarding place, character and event. Things happen intelligently and quickly, as new characters (like the one played by Michael Imperioli, below) are introduced and dealt with.

Only in the final section does logic and gray matter lose out to some sort of: what? Producer-inspired insistence that everything must come down to a face-off between our two heroines and the bad guy? I'm just guessing, but the ending -- while done with snappy style and enough pizzazz to carry us along, sailing on the good will that the movie has so far built up -- is ludicrous and unbelievable.

Overall, though, The Call is so exciting, well-written (by Richard D'Ovidio), -directed and -acted that I think you'll be (mostly) glad you watched. (That's Morris Chestnut, left, with David Otunga, doing the police thing, above.)

From TriStar Pictures (it's always good to see that flying horse again) and running a crisp 94 minutes, the movie came to DVD and Blu-ray (on which it looks quite sleek) this week, for sale and rental.