December Movies — Action Without the Hype » 30ninjas

December Movies — Action Without the Hype

Share on Facebook posted 11-17-09 by Angelo D'Argenio

Amidst the huge blockbuster releases coming out this holiday season, there are smaller movies that may be able to luck themselves into getting a word in edgewise over the Avatar hype. Oh, they are big in their own right. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of explosions, shootings, and other intense action to go around, it’s just that these movies never seemed to be able to rise to the surface of the Hollywood hype machine. Maybe it is because these movies all have a bit of controversy surrounding them, or maybe it’s because we are all too obsessed with 3-D sci-fi smurfs to care. Either way, here are some movies you should check out in December, even if you aren’t seeing advertisements for them every three seconds.

Armored (December 4th)

This is probably the least controversial movie on the list today. Granted, Armored still revolves around a group of new armored car drivers who are going to pull the heist of their life, and I’m sure some parental group somewhere is angry about how it glorifies crime, but the real meat and potatoes of this movie are going to be the stunts. Stunts everywhere! Armored cars blowing up, gunfights, money everywhere, it’s going to be tight! In fact, the stunts were so complicated in this movie, many of them had to be performed with full sized remote control cars. Add on top of this a phenomenal cast of Matt Dillon, Jean Reno, Laurence Fishburne, and Skeet Ulrich, as well as a director named Nimrod, and you have a recipe for one hell of a good time.

Invictus (December 11th)

Invictus is the story of how Nelson Mandela (portrayed by Morgan Freeman) brought together South Africa with the powerful force of rugby and Matt Damon’s sweet ass. In all seriousness though, this is a deep political story that shows how a country evolved through the use of a sport. It deals deeply with issues of race and violence and if you are uneasy about those sorts of things, you should probably avoid this movie. However, if that sort of stuff is your bag, then you might want to check out Invictus, simply because of how powerful people are saying the story is … or simply for Matt Damon’s sweet ass.

Brothers (December 4th)

Now this is quite the controversy. If you couldn’t tell by the trailer, this movie is about a soldier who goes missing in war time and returns to find that his brother has been sleeping with his wife, and has basically taken over his life for him. The thing is … I can’t tell who the “bad guy” is. I suppose the point of this movie is to be grey, but the brother is kind of sleazy for sleeping with his dead sibling’s wife, and the soldier looks like an outright psychopath. Either way, this is another powerful performance from a powerful cast of actors including Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire, and Jake Gyllenhaal, and should be entertaining to watch, if only for the fact that we can forget the political statements and just take amusement in watching Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire, and Jake Gyllenhaal kill each other.