Loosely based on true events, Ransomed, from director Kim Seong-hun (2016’s Tunnel), sets into motion with the abduction — and presumed death — of a South Korean diplomat by Lebanese terrorists in Beirut.

One year later, however, a telephone call of Morse code to the South Korean government suggests the diplomat is alive. Rather than risk embarrassment, Foreign Affairs officials decide to go around proper channels — like intelligence agencies — and pursue an under-the-radar rescue operation. They send the mild-mannered company man who answered that late-night call: Deputy Lee Min-jun (Ha Jung-woo of Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden). 

With a cash ransom of $2.5 million on his person, Min-jun lands in Beirut than gains an partner in slick-talking cabbie Pan-su (Ju Ji-hoon, The Spy Gone North). Pan-su’s an unwitting partner at first, forced into the situation by mere accident.

So begins the formula of every American buddy action-comedy of the 1980s and ’90s, only Ransomed often diverts from that well-laid path. Seong-hun offers no quips, no catchphrases, no “I’m too old for this shit”-type of shenanigans. As “wacky” as the poster sells the film, the film is not interested in being, say, Rush Hour 4.

This makes sense. Although compelling for the screen, the real-ilfe story of Do Chae Sung was too dire and dangerous to play for laughs. Seong-hun respects that while also administering the proper dosage of adrenaline to give the action sequences the punch to which modern audiences are accustomed.

Ransomed isn’t perfect, but Jung-woo and Ji-hoon — individually and in their interplay — often make you believe otherwise, except in an Act 2 lag. Knowledge of Eastern world politics may help you better understand the the plot nuances, but in terms of pure entertainment, the film transcends all barriers. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Between moonlighting as a smuggler, hitman, mercenary, peasant turned warrior and Megalodon-killing marine biologist, any of the machismo-brimmed hats Jason Statham has worn shouldn’t surprise us. In Suicide Squad director David Ayer’s The Beekeeper, however, he dawns a mask. (At least for the first six minutes.) Regardless, the film’s initial impression as a Great Value John Wick doesn’t work against it, instead amplifying its gun-toting buzz.

The film follows Adam Clay (Statham), a physically imposing beekeeper who rents a shed from his elderly neighbor, Eloise (Phylicia Rashad, Creed). One night, a phishing scam — secretly run by Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson, Five Nights at Freddy’s), the god of insufferable tech bros — drains Eloise’s savings and a community trust account, spurring her to suicide.

Clay discovers her body right before Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman, Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy), an FBI agent and Eloise’s daughter. After tense introductions, Clay contacts “the Beekeepers,” a secret organization he retired from that specializes in keeping the peace with a lot of guns. Clay obtains an address for an assuming office in Massachusetts, and the body count starts rising.

As you could imagine, not a lot happens under The Beekeeper’s hood — and that’s the beauty of it. Beyond the recurring use of the phrase “protect the hive” and the increasingly concerned looks of Jeremy Irons (Justice League), what a Beekeeper actually does is never explained. Though arguably oversimplified, the lack of a monolithic organization like the Continental, Kingsman or Expendables keeps the action’s focus exactly where it needs to be: on Statham.

Unfortunately, effectively dumbing down the secret society angle also means The Beekeeper noticeably lacks substance when its lead wanders off-screen. Most of the banter between Parker and her partner falls flat, as if their wit is the only thing preventing the movie from diving headfirst into a vat of ridiculous honey. The action’s set pieces emerge through an equally uninspired formula:

1. Clay kills the bad guy(s).
2. Bigger bad guy(s) called in to retaliate.
3. Clay kills them, too.
4. Repeat approximately five times.

That being said, how we get to the shootouts and explosions isn’t nearly as important as how they’re orchestrated. Fortunately, The Beekeeper finds Statham in peak, stoic form. Even if the violence lacks any permanence, it’s still a joy to see Clay outmaneuver a minigun or take out a team of commandos with some ratchet straps and an elevator.

The Beekeeper doesn’t offer much more than B-roll for an inevitable Statham documentary, but it doesn’t really need anything more than that. It’s not like The Transporter or Crank franchises offer substantially different experiences, yet they still persist as (vaguely) quintessential 2000s action flicks. Between this and The Meg, we could be closing in on the twilight of Statham’s generously prolific career. Check The Beekeeper out, and don’t stop bee-lieving in its star. —Daniel Bokemper

Get it at Amazon.

Allow me to save you a trip to Google: Not a typo, a “childe” is the son of noble birth. In the case of Marco, the young man at the center of South Korea’s The Childe, he’s an amateur boxer in the Philippines. Just a poor boy though his story’s seldom told, the 24-year-old fights to earn enough to pay for his ailing mother’s surgery. 

A miracle seemingly arrives when Marco is summoned to Korea by the father he’s never known, an über-wealthy tycoon who wants to foot the medical bills.

So what’s the catch? Cute that you think one exists … because many do, each aiming to kill Marco. Key among them are his own — albeit heretofore unknown — brother (Kim Kang-woo, Doomsday Book) and a mysterious assassin (Kim Seon-Ho).

Laden with surprises, misdirects and other on-your-toes keepers, The Childe is one of those pics where the less story you know going in, the more rewards you reap. That stands to reason since its writer/director, Park Hoon-Jung, previously gifted the world with the diabolic screenplay to I Saw the Devil, a modern classic of crime cinema. Although not up to that vaulted pedestal, The Childe excites and entertains with a breathless rush of action. Hoon-Jung (The Witch: Part 2 — The Other One) stages both foot pursuits and car chases with elegance, then one-ups himself with a 30-minute showdown in one wing of Dad’s mansion — all while a comatose body lie behind the shooters in a makeshift operating room.   

Newcomer Kang Tae-Ju may be the movie’s protagonist, but the true star is the magnetic Seon-Ho, a K-drama heartthrob in, unbelievably, just his first feature. His hitman character is a psychopath with a Joker-esque smile, no scruples and such confidence, you know the guy is dangerous, but aren’t sure how dangerous. That only makes him more terrifying, putting the chill in The Childe. His performance would be reason enough to view if Hoon-Jung’s film were bereft of thrills. Lucky for all involved (you included), it’s not. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

If you ask me, the wrong sharksploitation movie hit theaters this summer, while the better one went straight to VOD: respectively, Meg 2: The Trench and The Black Demon. From Rambo: Last Blood director Adrian Grünberg, The Black Demon is, incidentally, also about the now-nonexistent Megalodon.

Poseidon’s Josh Lucas returns to ocean waters as Paul, a safety inspector for Nixon Oil (subtle!). With his wife (Fernanda Urrejola, Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman) and two kids in tow, he comes to Mexico to see about decommissioning an offshore rig (which should be the new “see a man about a horse”). To their surprise, the coastal town is nearly uninhabited. Might that have to do with the 70-ton giant shark? ¡Sí!

Bearing a “Based on the Mexican legend” credit, Grünberg’s likable Demon might play better to Those Who Believe, but it’s hardly a prerequisite. Compared to the Meg movies, it may be vastly smaller in scale, yet yields bigger entertainment returns for your time invested. Given its rig setting, its hot-wired execution and its Home Depot pitchman star’s resemblance to Thomas Jane, the film exudes more Deep Blue Sea vibes than the actual Deep Blue Sea sequels, not to mention snazzier shark CGI.

The worst element is an ending so cheesy, it practically suggests a chardonnay to pair. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

When Natural Born Killers came upon the scene in ’94, I was all for it, mostly for the Quentin Tarantino connection, but, even with the travesty of The Doors, director Oliver Stone was no slouch. I haven’t viewed it since late that decade, so I thought it was high-time time to reconnect. Sadly, I should have let it stay buried in Hollywood’s mass grave of pretentious cinematic outings.

What once was a kinetic path to demonic satire, is now a try-hard commentary on the beguiling mass-media pandering while exploiting its audience for Hot Topic-heavy merchandise like wall posters in this pre-Boondocks Saints era.

In other words, it had a lot to say about nothing much.

Of course, Tarantino disowned this “story by” script as Stone does what he does best: overstuffing a film with overblown, artificial characters and set pieces, veering the classic convertible to total immolation. Sure, U-Turn was terrible, but NBK made it a special viewing party for the latent arsonist in next bedroom.

With a mixtape-like soundtrack — starting with languid Leonard Cohen’s “Waiting for the Miracle” before double-timing into L7’s “Shitlist” — we start with a diner massacre with all the cartoon buffoons the law allows. Great?

I see what Stone does here — brutal violence with white payback, right? — but it seems too close to caustic lampoonery to take it very seriously, which I did for most of 1994. “It’s art, man!” I’d say defending it, as I would scream until I was hoarse until I became nearly mute.

Wish massive cellblock Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and dreamy nightmare girl Mallory (Juliette Lewis) as our guides, we take on criminal culture with wide-angled lenses, fish-eye perspectives, stock-footage immolation, dark parody slayings and plenty of Stone’s well-worked trampling of the Indigenous people for shock value.

Playing to crowds of preening disciples in fake blood, both Harrelson and Lewis are in a LSD trip to hell, but the acid is bits of paper to look like drugs; the psychotic conventions are too cold-blooded for the stars of White Men Can’t Jump and The Other Sister.

Even then, most of this hollow body count is on Stone’s Karo-splattered shoulders, with too much of Mickey and Mallory’s shocking exploits coming to no rhyme and no reason, with none of the characters, motivations or camera angles to justify the whole thing and its furor.

Or maybe that’s the whole joke?   —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.