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Movies at the Pearl


Short Reviews of Movies Playing at the Pearl (1600 N Broad St.)

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Pearl Theater/Max Pulcini

Triple 9

There’s a lot of famous people in “Triple 9” — Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Kate Winslet, Aaron Paul and Chiwetel Ejiofor, to name a few. However, there’s so many more big names that it’s almost too much. That’s why it’s so disappointing to see “Triple 9”, a modern-day crime-thriller about crooks, dirty cops and drug-dealers, not utilize them all. However, the ones who do get to have some fun, like Harrelson and Winslet, seem to be having the times of their lives.

As for the rest of the movie? It’s a fine piece of action that’s heavy on the blood and violence, but not so heavy on the emotions. You’ve seen movies like “Triple 9” before, but that shouldn’t keep you away from seeing it and the B-movie thrills it tries not to promise, but still delivers on.

3 out of 5 stars

Race

You’d think that Jesse Owens’ own life would be enough to fill up his own biopic, right? Well, according to what “Race” shows, there was more to his story than we knew. In fact, maybe a little too much.

“Race” tells the story of Owens’ life starting college at Ohio State University, on a athletic scholarship, where he faced all sorts of racism and prejudice from fellow students and teammates. Through his track and field coach, Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis in a surprisingly dramatic role), Owens learns to block all of the hecklers around him and focus on winning races. Eventually, he wins so many, that he’s asked to represent the United States in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Now obviously, this is where “Race” becomes less about Jesse’s own story and about the Nazis and their hostility during the infamous Olympics, but it’s still interesting. It offers a glimpse into relations between the U.S. and Germany that hasn’t been seen before, however, it also feels oddly-placed. What was supposed to be an inspirational biopic about Owens and all of the adversity he had to overcome soon turns into this preachy statement about how the Nazis were bad people and the United States had the last laugh at the end of the day. Sure, this is true. Then again, I didn’t need to see this in Owens’ biopic.

2 out of 5 stars

Dan O’Neil is currently a Journalism student at Temple University. He can be reached at tuf73940@temple.edu, or at his blog, dtmmr.com.

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