* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Magicians and Battlebots light up Las Vegas entertainment scene – KSNV

    Magicians and Battlebots Take Las Vegas Entertainment by Storm

    Max-Matching Entertainments & Longhua District form partnership for new entertainment complex – Blooloop

    Max-Matching Entertainments and Longhua District Unite to Launch Thrilling New Entertainment Complex

    Kennedy Publishing, MGA Entertainment Launch Yummiland Magazine – License Global

    Kennedy Publishing, MGA Entertainment Launch Yummiland Magazine – License Global

    MAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE 🙏 Veteran entertainment columnist and talent manager Lolit Solis has passed away. She was 78 years old. https://tinyurl.com/6kumarkx | LatestChika.com – Facebook

    Beloved Entertainment Icon Lolit Solis Passes Away at 78 – A Life Remembered with Love and Respect 🙏

    Neil Young Plays Rare Full-Band ‘Ambulance Blues’ With The Chrome Hearts – Yahoo

    Neil Young Stuns Fans with Rare Full-Band Performance of ‘Ambulance Blues’ Alongside The Chrome Hearts

    BTS Announce Their Big Return and Yes, They Already Have Some Major Plans in the Works – Yahoo

    BTS Announce Their Big Return and Yes, They Already Have Some Major Plans in the Works – Yahoo

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    EIFO invests $5 million in D3, the Ukraine-focused defence technology venture fund – sUAS News

    EIFO Pledges $5 Million to Supercharge Ukraine-Focused Defense Technology Fund

    New Technology for Water Efficiency and Working with Mexico on Screwworm – AG INFORMATION NETWORK OF THE WEST

    Revolutionary Water Efficiency Technology and Cross-Border Collaboration to Defeat Screwworm

    Environmental cognitive distance, R&D capability distance, and supply chain green technology innovation – Nature

    Bridging Gaps: How Environmental and R&D Differences Drive Green Technology Innovation in Supply Chains

    LG Innotek CEO Moon Hyuksoo: “Our Next-gen Substrate Technology Will Change the Industry Paradigm” – TechPowerUp

    LG Innotek CEO Moon Hyuksoo: “Our Next-Gen Substrate Technology Will Revolutionize the Industry” Revolutionizing the Future: LG Innotek’s CEO Unveils Game-Changing Next-Gen Substrate Technology

    Inspira Technologies Secures Landmark $22.5M Deal: Major Revenue Breakthrough After FDA Clearance – Stock Titan

    Inspira Technologies Secures Landmark $22.5M Deal: Major Revenue Breakthrough After FDA Clearance – Stock Titan

    Meiwu Technology Company Limited and Shenzhen Zhinuo – GlobeNewswire

    Meiwu Technology Company Limited and Shenzhen Zhinuo – GlobeNewswire

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Magicians and Battlebots light up Las Vegas entertainment scene – KSNV

    Magicians and Battlebots Take Las Vegas Entertainment by Storm

    Max-Matching Entertainments & Longhua District form partnership for new entertainment complex – Blooloop

    Max-Matching Entertainments and Longhua District Unite to Launch Thrilling New Entertainment Complex

    Kennedy Publishing, MGA Entertainment Launch Yummiland Magazine – License Global

    Kennedy Publishing, MGA Entertainment Launch Yummiland Magazine – License Global

    MAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE 🙏 Veteran entertainment columnist and talent manager Lolit Solis has passed away. She was 78 years old. https://tinyurl.com/6kumarkx | LatestChika.com – Facebook

    Beloved Entertainment Icon Lolit Solis Passes Away at 78 – A Life Remembered with Love and Respect 🙏

    Neil Young Plays Rare Full-Band ‘Ambulance Blues’ With The Chrome Hearts – Yahoo

    Neil Young Stuns Fans with Rare Full-Band Performance of ‘Ambulance Blues’ Alongside The Chrome Hearts

    BTS Announce Their Big Return and Yes, They Already Have Some Major Plans in the Works – Yahoo

    BTS Announce Their Big Return and Yes, They Already Have Some Major Plans in the Works – Yahoo

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    EIFO invests $5 million in D3, the Ukraine-focused defence technology venture fund – sUAS News

    EIFO Pledges $5 Million to Supercharge Ukraine-Focused Defense Technology Fund

    New Technology for Water Efficiency and Working with Mexico on Screwworm – AG INFORMATION NETWORK OF THE WEST

    Revolutionary Water Efficiency Technology and Cross-Border Collaboration to Defeat Screwworm

    Environmental cognitive distance, R&D capability distance, and supply chain green technology innovation – Nature

    Bridging Gaps: How Environmental and R&D Differences Drive Green Technology Innovation in Supply Chains

    LG Innotek CEO Moon Hyuksoo: “Our Next-gen Substrate Technology Will Change the Industry Paradigm” – TechPowerUp

    LG Innotek CEO Moon Hyuksoo: “Our Next-Gen Substrate Technology Will Revolutionize the Industry” Revolutionizing the Future: LG Innotek’s CEO Unveils Game-Changing Next-Gen Substrate Technology

    Inspira Technologies Secures Landmark $22.5M Deal: Major Revenue Breakthrough After FDA Clearance – Stock Titan

    Inspira Technologies Secures Landmark $22.5M Deal: Major Revenue Breakthrough After FDA Clearance – Stock Titan

    Meiwu Technology Company Limited and Shenzhen Zhinuo – GlobeNewswire

    Meiwu Technology Company Limited and Shenzhen Zhinuo – GlobeNewswire

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Entertainment

Self Reliance Review

January 13, 2024
in Entertainment
Self Reliance Review
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

A so-so comic thriller casts the former Nick Miller as the most dangerous game

Self Reliance Review - IGN Image

Erik Adams Avatar

Updated:

Jan 13, 2024 2:58 am

Posted:

Jan 13, 2024 2:57 am

For his first movie as a director, New Girl alum Jake Johnson wisely taps the strengths of a lead actor he knows very well: New Girl alum Jake Johnson. The king of dirtbags you can bring home to mom is expertly (self-)cast as Self Reliance’s Tommy, a down-on-his luck Angeleno who submits to a month-long “game” – as in “Squid,” “The,” or “The Most Dangerous” – with a promised payout of $1 million. It’s a role that allows Johnson to deploy one of the sharpest instruments in his comedic tool chest: A knack for conveying outlandish ideas with utter matter-of-fact sincerity. You can see where this might come in handy, as a lot of the laughs in Self Reliance depend on Tommy explaining to friends, family, or strangers that Andy Samberg (playing himself) invited him for a limo ride, and he’s being hunted for a reality show broadcast on the dark web, and the only thing keeping him safe is being in close proximity to another person – like seated-next-to or sharing-a-bed close.

Unfortunately, Johnson’s directing style mimics a different facet of his onscreen persona: The cool nonchalance that would allow a guy like Tommy to sink into multiple ruts and never look back. Enough of Tommy’s encounters with elaborately costumed would-be killers are treated with a shrug that it makes his predicament feel like a minor inconvenience and not a quest to get (modestly) rich or die trying. Self Reliance never musters the psychological-thriller pressure necessary to make us fear for Tommy’s safety, over-relying on dramatic lighting and the ominous pings and pongs of Dan Romer’s instrumental score to instill a sense of danger. Johnson’s aims for Self Reliance are grand, but he has a firmer grasp on the downtime between attempted murders and the absurdist peeks behind the game’s curtain.

Consider the extended interlude in which Tommy and fellow player (and more?) Maddy (Anna Kendrick) hide out in a motel while running out the clock on Tommy’s 30-day sentence. A montage of their beer-swilling, takeout-eating, and casual-snuggling retreat efficiently communicates their growing bond and echoes previous stitched-together snapshots of Tommy sliding into routine. But save for a delightfully strange encounter with a guy who may or may not be dressed like Mario, the sequence also trades anything resembling suspenseful filmmaking for a laid-back, improv-adjacent approach akin to Johnson and Kendrick’s past collaborator Joe Swanberg. (It even coasts off of some of the easy rapport the duo first struck up in Swanberg’s Drinking Buddies.) It’s a momentum-killing tangent that requires one hell of a contrivance to escape – but it’s also not the last time Self Reliance’s blasé undercurrent takes the wind out of its sails.

It may be more of a scripting problem than a directing one – though it bears mentioning that the director and star is also the screenwriter here. There’s a bewitching, dreamlike texture to Tommy’s induction into the game and its rules, full of labyrinthine hallways, screen-warping wide-angle cinematography, and reality-TV production staff who slip in and out of shadows like sleep paralysis hallucinations. That elliptical loopiness helps gin up conflict between Tommy and his underwritten mother and sisters (played by Nancy Lenehan, Mary Holland, and Emily Hampshire), but it doesn’t extend to the clumsy dialogue in which they tell him he’s delusional. The characters have a bad habit of saying exactly what’s on their minds, or pinpointing exactly what’s troubling Tommy, as if we haven’t been able to pick up from the photo on his nightstand, his lonely perch at a bar, or his nondescript desk job that he’s struggling to overcome a break up and forge connection in a world where the average person is little more than a pawn in the destructive recreational pursuits of the ultra-wealthy.

It’s all a little undercooked for a modern-day fable that leads with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote and introduces its big-money bloodsport with whimsical picture-book illustrations. When it’s weird, Self Reliance is winningly so: I Think You Should Leave oddball Biff Wiff steals his scenes as Tommy’s initial sidekick, a spacey drifter who compliments Maddy’s mom (Miriam Flynn) on her “delicious” spaghetti, then guilelessly asks for the name of the ubiquitous dish. That Self Reliance doesn’t end the scene on that punchline, but rather has Flynn answer with a curt “spaghetti,” betrays a certain lack of confidence. It’s an all too frequent occurrence in the film, which is genuinely out-there in ways that work in Johnson’s voice, but either can’t fully commit to the bit or reins itself in out of getting too nutty. We’ve already climbed into the limo with Tommy. Self Reliance shouldn’t be so apologetic about where it’s headed.

Verdict

Jake Johnson takes a big swing with his first attempt at starring in, writing, and directing a movie: A comedic riff on The Most Dangerous Game where his character is safe from being killed as long as there’s someone else nearby. That scenario creates a lot of awkward opportunities for Johnson to capitalize on with his signature, deeply committed delivery. But “safe” winds up being the watchword here, with a script that’s too eager to underline its themes of community and connection, and a director who’s more comfortable overseeing quips and conversation than rollicking suspense.

In This Article

Self Reliance

okay

Self Reliance’s comedic riff on The Most Dangerous Game benefits from writer-director-star Jake Johnson’s extraordinary ability to commit to a bit – but it’s lacking a sense of danger.

Erik Adams Avatar Avatar

Erik Adams

Official IGN Review

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : IGN – https://www.ign.com/articles/self-reliance-review-hulu-jake-johnson

Tags: entertainmentRelianceReview
Previous Post

What is the Rabbit R1 AI Assistant and why is everyone going crazy for it?

Next Post

Xbox Developer_Direct January 2024: How to Watch and What to Expect

New book digs into Indigenous cuisine through archaeology, culture, ecology – Gander Newsroom

Unveiling Indigenous Cuisine: Exploring the Rich Tapestry of Archaeology, Culture, and Ecology

July 6, 2025
BANG! James Webb telescope catches stray galaxies in the Bullet Cluster: Space photo of the week – Live Science

BANG! James Webb Telescope Unveils Breathtaking Image of Stray Galaxies in the Bullet Cluster

July 6, 2025
How Do You Teach Computer Science in the A.I. Era? – The New York Times

Unlocking Success: Mastering Computer Science Education in the Age of A.I

July 6, 2025
If you want to be younger looking in 60 days, start practicing these 8 daily habits – VegOut

If you want to be younger looking in 60 days, start practicing these 8 daily habits – VegOut

July 6, 2025
Real Madrid vs Borussia Dortmund 3-2: FIFA Club World Cup – as it happened – Al Jazeera

Real Madrid vs Borussia Dortmund 3-2: FIFA Club World Cup – as it happened – Al Jazeera

July 6, 2025

Israel’s economy can’t survive a long war with Iran – and Trump knows it – Middle East Eye

July 6, 2025
The long-term health risks as extreme heat becomes a new normal – PBS

Uncovering the Silent, Long-Term Health Risks of Life in Extreme Heat

July 6, 2025
Trump Says He Will Start Talks With China on TikTok Deal – The New York Times

Trump Says He Will Start Talks With China on TikTok Deal – The New York Times

July 6, 2025
EIFO invests $5 million in D3, the Ukraine-focused defence technology venture fund – sUAS News

EIFO Pledges $5 Million to Supercharge Ukraine-Focused Defense Technology Fund

July 6, 2025
Winning sports’ woke war is great, but unfortunately it’s led by the absurd – New York Post

The Thrilling Battle for Sports Culture Is Fueled by the Absurd

July 6, 2025

Categories

Archives

July 2025
MTWTFSS
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031 
« Jun    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (707)
  • Economy (732)
  • Entertainment (21,621)
  • General (15,739)
  • Health (9,770)
  • Lifestyle (737)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (733)
  • Politics (741)
  • Science (15,949)
  • Sports (21,231)
  • Technology (15,716)
  • World (713)

Recent News

New book digs into Indigenous cuisine through archaeology, culture, ecology – Gander Newsroom

Unveiling Indigenous Cuisine: Exploring the Rich Tapestry of Archaeology, Culture, and Ecology

July 6, 2025
BANG! James Webb telescope catches stray galaxies in the Bullet Cluster: Space photo of the week – Live Science

BANG! James Webb Telescope Unveils Breathtaking Image of Stray Galaxies in the Bullet Cluster

July 6, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version