Matt Cipolla

It’s not so much a matter of the piece being one-sided; that would at least imply a more vehement perspective. It’s the lack of deconstructive efforts here that ultimately turn the piece into less than the sum of its parts.

The idea of making a documentary about the man isn’t inherently flawed, but this one’s approach is, lacking the insight or visuals to make it feel like more than a glorified clip show.

It wants to be something cute for the family. It also wants to show how belligerent and vulgar young teenagers can be. The problem is that the two never intersect, and it’s jarring, to say the least.

Scream is not a bad movie. It is, however, a case of mediocrity being the worst sin. For a franchise all about coping with a media landscape that begets disillusionment to produce something just like this, it especially hurts.

Despite the reasons House of Gucci doesn’t work, none are damning enough to make a bad movie. It’s forgettable, sometimes playing like the sort of cable-TV fare that displaced these tales from the silver screen over the past decade. Yet Scott’s efforts, and especially those of Johnson and Bentivegna, just don’t keep up. And what’s the point of going big if you’re not going to go for it all?

It’s a very well done documentary on a technical level, and those qualities make it quite energizing at times. It’s the pace that truncates some of the details, making Homeroom too brisk to realize all of its moving parts.

Textually, problems emerge from the myriad supporting characters, virtually all of whom play like narrative props. The script seems uninterested in its conflict; the filmmaking lacks the style to glue its pieces together.

The final result is about as much of a time-passer one could make with this script and what must have been a small budget.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow aims more to be about its small village, but in reality, it’s more about how frayed police officers, especially men, abuse their privileges. It’d be a great vehicle to skewer these topics if the pieces fit together, but they don’t.

Sorkin doesn’t face these evils for more than a moment at a time. He doesn’t even try to convert the uninitiated, but his movie thinks it does. His script and direction gaze rather than observe, and by the time the score swells and the requisite title cards inform the viewer of its leads’ fates, The Trial of the Chicago 7 has brought virtually nothing to light.