madwand6

Robert Duvall is the only reason this movie gets a five - he's magnetic as always and brings real weight to every scene he's in. But the rest of this film doesn't earn him. It plays out like a Hallmark movie with some gunfire thrown in.

The plot is absurd: an 85-year-old man picking up a woman in her twenties, and his wet-behind-the-ears grandson grabbing a gun and chasing cartel members. It's far-fetched, contrived, and often just plain silly.

The worst offender is the kid. He mimics Duvall's tough-guy lines in two key scenes. The first time, it's cringey. The second - trying to bluff cartel gunmen - it crosses into flat-out stupid. Those moments were clearly written as "character growth," but they felt more like role-play with zero build-up.

Duvall holds the movie together as best he can, but even he can't salvage a script this tone-deaf. It's like they threw clichés at the wall and expected his talent to carry the whole load.

Bottom line: Great performance, bad movie. Watch it for Duvall if you must - but be prepared to cringe.

I was genuinely interested in The Little Stranger at first - it had a promising setup, an intriguing setting, and the kind of slow-burning atmosphere I normally appreciate in a gothic drama. But the further it went, the more it felt like the film was deliberately withholding any sort of narrative resolution. By the time it ended, I wasn't just unsatisfied - I was confused and frustrated. Not in the "mind-bending" or "interpret it how you want" sense, but in the "did anything actually happen, or was this all just mood and no meaning?" kind of way. The ambiguity was so extreme that I didn't even have enough to form a theory - the movie hints at supernatural, psychological, and metaphorical explanations but refuses to develop any of them into something coherent. On top of that, I found the lead character's facial affectation exhausting. He goes through nearly the entire movie with the same blank, vaguely smug expression - the only time he noticeably reacts is when he's angry in his car. It made it even harder to connect with him or understand what was going on inside his head, which is unfortunate considering the story revolves around his perspective. I don't mind subtlety or ambiguity when there's something underneath it all - but this just felt empty. It's one thing to leave room for interpretation; it's another to leave your audience with nothing to interpret. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone expecting a compelling story or a satisfying conclusion.