Alan Ritchson

Motor City

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Miller (Alan Ritchson) in prison

Would Motor City be a better film without the gimmick? Which is? No dialogue. Or not much anyway. Five lines, the blurbs say, though even that might be an exaggeration. Director Potsy Ponciroli made Old Henry a few years ago, and I liked that. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt and waded in, finding the wordlessness by turns charming, fascinating, irritating and cute but ultimately rewarding. You have to surrender yourself to his conceit, I reckon, which I eventually did. Dialogue is not strictly that important anyway, this being the story of a dude in 1970s Detroit who is fitted up for a crime he didn’t commit – he’s been … Read more

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

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Gus March-Phillips and his team

You know The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a Guy Ritchie film even without knowing it’s a Guy Ritchie film. That Gentleman bit of the title is the giveaway – whether it’s Holmes and Watson or the Lock, Stock lads, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or The Gentlemen (film and TV versions), Ritchie has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s a guy Guy. Even his most feminine sounding movie, Snatch, is all about the boys. So the real-life story of the dude who became the template for Ian Fleming’s James Bond sounds like a good fit. And with Henry Cavill – regularly proposed as the next 007 – as Gus March-Phillips, what could possibly wrong? Before answering … Read more

Ordinary Angels

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Sharon tries to hand out some flyers

Ordinary Angels is a very ordinary film in many ways. It’s familiar and comforting and goes exactly where you probably expect it to go. The fact that it’s based on a true story and features representations of real people is almost immaterial. These are screen archetypes doing what screen archetypes do. On one side a stoic, manly, buttoned-down dad who’s lost his wife and is now in trouble again, with a sick daughter whose medical treatment is going to bleed him dry. On the other one of those folksy, Southern women whose university-of-life smarts can open doors that otherwise remain closed. Alan Ritchson plays Ed, a blue-collar guy who straps on a utility … Read more