Movie & Television Reviews

“I need a Xanax!” declares a victim-in-waiting in the bloodsoaked slasher flick “The Strangers – Chapter 3” (Lionsgate). Moviegoers unwise enough to patronize the film may end up echoing that sentiment.

Capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

All three of the main characters in “Crime 101” (Amazon MGM), the film adaptation of Don Winslow’s 2020 novella, are dealing with lives and careers that have slammed into a wall.

It takes nearly an hour of gunfire, car chases and flying fists for the plot of “Shelter” (Black Bear) to emerge. That it’s another of Jason Statham’s pictures in which he plays a brooding loner who eventually avenges old wrongs. Yet the film almost sneers at viewers for expecting exactly what they get.

“Send Help” (20th Century) is a bitterly cynical horror movie that charts a race to the ethical bottom between its two main characters. In fact, as scripted by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, director Sam Raimi’s deliberately outrageous film suggests that worldly success can be achieved by resorting to unbridled viciousness.

With apologies to pulp fiction crime writer Mickey Spillane, the dystopian thriller “Mercy” (Amazon MGM) might more aptly be called AI the Jury. That’s because, in the film’s near-future setting, artificial intelligence is empowered to fight crime by generating a rough sort of justice.