‘Thanksgiving’ & ‘Next Goal Wins’- Film Reviews

As the year draws to a close, it’s all about reviewing and catching up on nearly everything I saw over the past several months, whether at home or in theaters. Fortunately, I haven’t pulled a double feature on a Sunday morning since returning from vacation, and, surprisingly, I preferred one over the other. Now that we’ve covered that, let me share my thoughts on Thanksgiving and Next Goal Wins.

‘Thanksgiving’

Usually, it’s common for the horror genre to spread some holiday cheer into their films. Christmas has Black Christmas, Valentine’s Day as My Bloody Valentine, and it’s a tradition to watch any Halloween movie around the spooky season. Now, we could look at Eli Roth’s latest Thanksgiving to be watched around giving time. And honestly, this wasn’t one I wasn’t planning on ever seeing because I’m not a fan of Roth, considering the trash he brings to horror. But, interestingly, it took him long to make a full-length movie based on the popular fake trailer in front of 2007’s Grindhouse, along with how Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun were also turned into films. The curiosity of this being good loomed over me, whether it would be a deliciously good time or a waste of a good concept. And while Thanksgiving isn’t destined to become the next best slasher film, a la Scream, I was shocked by how good this turned out to be 16 years in the making.

What’s the Story: The town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, is where the holiday Thanksgiving was born. Families gather for dinner and enjoy the blessed time they have together. However, everything changed after a Black Friday sale at a RightMart superstore turned deadly from a riot, leaving multiple people dead. A year later, things are slowly getting back to normal besides the decision to have the store open for the busiest day of the year, but Jessica (Nell Verlaque) and her friends Gabby (Addison Rae), Evan (Tomaso Sanelli), Scuba (Gabriel Davenport), and Yulia (Jenna Warren) wants to forget until a mysterious stranger tagged them in an Instagram post with their names around a Thanksgiving table. Someone in black clothing and wearing the mask of Plymouth’s first governor, John Carver, is killing those connected to the previous year’s travesty with an ax as their weapon of choice.

You can tell Roth wanted to make Thanksgiving a reality for a while, and it’s about time for him to do something not in the torture porn part of horror and subvert audiences expectations with a holiday horror that might have us think twice around the time of year now. Not everything has to be scary, but it can work when it’s an over-the-top throwback to anyone who watched VHS copies of B movies that might take place on the holiday. I had no idea what to expect from this other than to be nervous while watching, and I definitely felt that way when trying to identify the murderer and, if there was one, their motive. Does it attempt to reinvent the wheel? No, but he and screenwriter Jeff Randell gel with the whodunnit formula well enough to know this won’t offer any deep meaning after it’s over. It builds tension that mostly makes up for some lulls when no murders happen.

As for the characters, chances are you won’t care if they get killed or not, and it’s easy to assume since both the teenagers and adults play the exact archetypes they’re supposed to play, even though the dialogue might be bad on purpose that can hold the movie from being great status. But the performances do their best, and it might be some of the (primarily) better acting in a Roth film despite nobody standing out. Nell Verlaque as Jessica doesn’t make for the most memorable final girl compared to the most popular ones in the genre (Laurie Strode, Sidney Prescott), but she wasn’t all that bad. Just the news of Addison Rae in the cast turned me off instantly because there’s no way a TikTok star should get work. She was tolerable. And Patrick Dempsey was quite amusing in one of his better film roles as Sheriff Newlon.

For an R-rated slasher, this doesn’t skimp out on the gore in any way, with some pretty creative kills one would expect from a killer named John Carver, who makes for a creepy villain. Thankfully, it’s intended to be gruesome fun instead of being mean-spirited since most victims asked for it earlier. Just the opening Black Friday scene alone is a horror movie that made me thankful that craziness died down years later. Because what’s scarier than a person in a mask? Consumerism. And when you’re the only person in the entire theater, it does allow you to react the same way you’re watching this at home with how brutal these kills are, and I’m someone who doesn’t always stomach blood.

When it comes to who’s underneath the mask, I had two characters in mind the whole time that play with the red herring trope most horror fans are familiar with, leaving the ending predictable. There also was a point where logic got thrown out the window of where a character was, and it would be impossible to explain how they got from one location to the next that quickly.

Overall, Thanksgiving won’t become the next movie to put on during the holidays every year, but props to Eli Roth for bringing together a tense and pretty scary slasher. Those usually turned off by Roth’s filmography might be in for a fun and bloody surprise for a film that won’t have us eating or looking at turkey the same way ever again. Or garbage cans. Will this become the next big franchise for the studio? We might see, but I had more fun sitting through this than tame ‘90s slashers. And recently, a sequel has been announced and is scheduled to come out in two years.

Grade: B

Release Date: November 17, 2023

Runtime: 106 Minutes

Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, pervasive language and some sexual material.

Distributions: Sony/ TriStar Pictures

‘Next Goal Wins’

About a year ago, my anticipation for Next Goal Wins was reasonable since it was nice to see Writer/director Taika Waititi take a break from the MCU to helm a potential hit for Searchlight Pictures after the fantastic Jojo Rabbit, one of my favorite films of that year. But then followed a few delays in its paths, and its first reactions from the Toronto Internet Film Festival were less outstanding than we had hoped. Besides, fans of the Oscar-winning Kiwi are growing weary of him on the internet, particularly in light of the polarizing reviews his previous movie, Thor: Love and Thunder, received. That said, there was hope when you have a filmmaker telling a true underdog story & that has to be the most uplifting sports comedy, right? Despite trying to be similar to Ted Lasso and the vibes of Cool Runnings, I walked out of his latest effort feeling underwhelmed.

What’s the Story: Based on actual events and the 2014 documentary of the same name, Dutch-American coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender) hasn’t always controlled his temper on the field, which caused him to get fired from his current position. But there’s a bright side: The American Soccer Federation gives him a choice between having no job or coaching the American Samoa team. It’s a team so infamous they scored the record for the worst loss in soccer history in 2001 in a 31-0 match against Australia With the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifications on the way. Thomas has to train these terrible Players into a Winning team, not to win the entire game, but to score one goal.

Usually, I’m a sucker for a feel-good sports movie from someone who never liked to be associated with them in real life. Waititi’s task is to provide as much inspiration as possible to have Rongen train these ragtag players, yet Next Goal Wins lacked something that made it hard to find engaging. Everything comes across as the most cliche movie you’ll see all year that doesn’t try to take any big chances when we want the American Samoa team to be the best. The problem is the thriving momentum in believing in them gets lost in a flat experience despite the beautiful backdrop of Honolulu to place for the South Pacific territory.

And when I say nothing new is offered here, it’s the truth that will leave many feeling unfulfilled, which also lends to Waititi’s signature style of dry humor falling short of making me laugh at every attempt. The only times I heard laughter from the audience was near the end, and the couple of times it wanted to get me, it wasn’t worth giving the satisfaction.

Michael Fassbender’s comeback made me lucky he also came out with The Killer, but seeing the Irish actor known more for dramas flex his comedic chops to portray Thomas was different. This wasn’t one of his better performances since something about him seems miscast, yet you know he’s the type of character to start unlikable only to ultimately root for him once we learn who he is on the inside. And that’s besides the constant drinking and finding out he used to be a skilled former athlete. But what a standout in Kaimana as Jaiyah Saelua, the team’s center-back who’s the first transgender player to play in the World Cup. They gave none of the other characters much to do, but Jaiyah was the most developed in having an arc some might relate to with their struggles as a footballer. There should’ve been more of a connection between them and Thomas after they started on the wrong foot (him calling Jaiyah by their dead name); it’s just how they handled Jaiyah later on that didn’t hit emotionally as it wanted.

Even when it wears its heart on its shoulders, sometimes it had to play the manipulation card once or twice, which didn’t sit with me, especially a reveal I thought was cheap to use near the end, which adds to why it felt unfocused. And from someone who doesn’t know about the story and hopes the eventual outcome is enough to win me over, the engagement when they’re on the field doesn’t bring the excitement and doesn’t shine through Waititi’s direction. But the decision to tell the climax in the third person baffled me when I was starting to get slightly invested. Just when the tension was building up in the game, it was gone in its execution, making me wish for a better movie than we got.

Overall, Next Goal Wins isn’t one of Taika Waititi’s more watchable films to sit through when we have an underdog story that tries to be heartfelt and hilarious only to be a paint-by-numbers sports comedy, resulting in a losing game. This won’t come close to being an Oscar contender, unlike Jojo Rabbit.