Movie :: Central intelligence (2016)

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- IMDB
- Wikipedia

Central Intelligence is a 2016 American action comedy film directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber and written by Thurber, Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen. The film stars Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart as two old high school friends who team up to save the world after one of them joins the CIA.

Plot:
In 1996, Calvin Joyner is being recognized for an award at the last high school pep rally. Meanwhile, Robbie Weirdicht, an overweight kid with no friends, gets carried out of the boys' locker room while showering by school bullies and is then thrown into the gym during the pep rally just as Calvin is receiving his award and is laughed upon his nude entrance. Calvin immediately takes off his jacket and gives it to Robbie who thanks Calvin and leaves the school.

Twenty years later, Calvin has married his high school sweetheart, Maggie, and works as an accountant. He is highly unsatisfied with his life as he is passed over for a promotion that was given to his former assistant. Maggie, however, is a partner at her law firm and is quite happy. She suggests they see a therapist to work on their marriage issues. Calvin does not want to go to their 20 year high school reunion taking place the next day. At the same time, Calvin receives a Facebook friend request from Bob Stone (actually Robbie, who has changed his name). They meet for drinks at a local pub. While at the pub, the pair gets into an argument with bullies who try to take Bob's chair. Bob takes out the bullies and then leaves with Calvin. Bob suggests the pair go back to their old high school and have Calvin reminisce about his glory days. Instead, Calvin is disappointed that he peaked in high school, and that his life has been declining since.

As Bob drops Calvin off at his house, he asks Calvin to look at some accounting records, saying he is having payroll issues. Bob's "accounting records" are actually satellite codes. Bob ends up spending the night on Calvin's couch. The next morning, the CIA, led by Pam, comes to Calvin's house in search of Bob. Calvin leads them to the living room where there is no evidence of Bob's presence. Pam informs Calvin that Bob is a dangerous rogue agent that killed his former partner, Phil, to obtain all U.S. satellite codes with the intention of selling them to the highest bidder.

As the CIA agents follow Calvin to his office, Bob successfully abducts Calvin, while explaining that he is trying to stop the "Black Badger" from selling the satellite codes, but needs Calvin's skills as a forensic accountant to figure out the exact location where the deal will happen. The pair is then attacked by Larry (a former CIA agent turned bounty hunter). During the attack, Calvin runs away but is intercepted by Pam. Pam informs Calvin that Bob is delusional and the "Black Badger" doesn't exist. She gives Calvin a device that will alert the CIA to his whereabouts when he is reunited with Bob. Calvin then goes to marriage counseling where Bob is posing as the marriage counselor (the real counselor he has tied up, gagged and stashed in the office closet). Bob convinces Calvin to help him and Calvin sets up a meeting with Trevor (one of Bob's bullies) so they can obtain the account number that reveals the location of the deal. Trevor helps them, but not before bullying Bob again by pretending to apologize for the past and then calling him fat. Calvin encourages Bob to punch out Trevor just like he did to the bullies at the bar, but Bob freezes up. As they are leaving Trevor's office, Pam calls Calvin and threatens to arrest Maggie if he doesn't turn Bob in. Calvin betrays Bob and Bob is arrested.

As Bob is being tortured by Pam, as she believes that he has the satellite codes, Calvin decides to help Bob. He successfully breaks him out and the two get away. Calvin figures out the location of the deal is in Boston and Bob steals a golden plane. As the pair arrive in a park at Boston, Calvin deduces that the deal must be going down in an underground parking garage, as it wouldn't be out in the open. Bob tells Calvin to stay in the park and enters the garage alone. However, Pam shows up, and Calvin mistakenly believes her to be the Black Badger and runs into the garage where Bob is posing as the Black Badger while meeting the buyer. Bob shoots Calvin, grazing his neck and knocking him backwards out of the room (which puts him out of the action, therefore saving his life). Bob's former partner Phil reveals himself to still be alive and claims to be the real Black Badger. While both Bob and Phil try to convince the buyer that they are the real Black Badger, each with a USB containing the satellite codes, the CIA arrives and a shootout commences. Calvin steals both sets of satellite codes and runs upstairs back into the park where he is intercepted by both Bob and Phil. As Bob and Phil engage in hand-to-hand combat, Calvin, not knowing whom to trust, closes his eyes and fires a shot that hits Bob in the butt. After Phil knocks Bob out, Phil reveals that Phil is the Black Badger and is about to shoot Calvin. Bob tackles Phil and kills him by ripping his throat out. Bob believes that Calvin shot him as part of a plan to trick Phil into confessing. Calvin goes along with it.

The pair arrive at the high school reunion in a CIA helicopter where Maggie spots them. She questions Calvin about his weird behavior and why he is with the marriage counselor. Bob properly introduces himself and explains the truth. As the three enter the gym where the reunion is held, Bob is having second thoughts since he didn't have any other friends in high school. Calvin convinces him to stay where he is, as he is about to be announced as the Homecoming King. Calvin reveals to Maggie that he hacked the voting systems and made Bob the king. As Bob is walking to the stage to accept his position, Trevor steps in his way and attempts to start bullying him again. Bob knocks Trevor unconscious with one punch and goes on stage where he re-lives his most embarrassing moment by taking off all his clothes. This time, however, he is full of confidence. As he walks off stage, he spots his high school crush, Darla, and the two share a kiss.

In the closing scene, it is shown that Calvin has joined the CIA and as a gift for his first day on the job, Bob gives him back the Golden Jet jacket that Calvin gave him back in high school.

Movie :: Mr Holmes (2015)

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- Wikipedia
- IMDB

Mr. Holmes is a 2015 British-American crime drama mystery film, directed by Bill Condon, based on Mitch Cullin's 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, and featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. The film stars Sir Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes, Laura Linney as housekeeper Mrs. Munro and Milo Parker as her son Roger. Set primarily during his retirement, the film follows a 93-year-old Holmes who struggles to recall the details of his final case while his mind begins to deteriorate.

Plot
In 1947, the long-retired Sherlock Holmes, aged 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse with his housekeeper, Mrs Munro, and her young son Roger. Having just returned from a trip to Hiroshima, he starts to use jelly made from the prickly ash plant he acquired there in an effort to improve his failing memory. Unhappy about his ex-partner Watson's fictionalisation of the story of Holmes's last case, the fictitious “The Adventure of the Dove Grey Glove”, he hopes to write his own account but is having trouble recalling the details. As Holmes spends time with Roger, showing him how to take care of the bees in the farmhouse's apiary, he comes to appreciate Roger's curiosity and intelligence and develops a paternal liking for him.

Over time, Roger's gentle prodding helps Holmes to remember the case (shown in flashbacks) and why he retired from the detective business. Thirty-five years earlier, a man named Thomas Kelmot had approached Holmes with a request to find out why his wife Ann had changed so much after suffering two miscarriages. Holmes followed Ann around London and observed her taking certain actions – forging cheques in her husband's name and cashing them, reviewing the details of his will, buying poison from a chemist's shop, checking train schedules – which made it appear as if she were planning to murder Thomas and inherit his property. Holmes deduced her true intentions: to have gravestones made for herself and her miscarried children, then commit suicide with the poison. Confronting her, he claimed to understand her sense of loneliness and isolation and confessed that he had those same feelings. Ann poured the poison on the ground and asked Holmes if they could share the burden of their loneliness together. Holmes urged her to return to her husband; instead, she killed herself by stepping in front of an oncoming train. Blaming himself for her death, Holmes chose to retire.

A second series of flashbacks recounts Holmes's trip to Japan, where he met a supposed admirer named Tamiki Umezaki. Years ago, Umezaki's father had abandoned him and his mother while away in England. In a letter, Umezaki's father wrote that he was so impressed by the brilliant Sherlock Holmes that he resolved to stay in England forever. Holmes bluntly told Umezaki that his father simply wanted a new life for himself and that Holmes never met him. Umezaki was crushed by this revelation.

In the present, Mrs Munro gradually becomes dissatisfied with caring for Holmes as his overall health deteriorates, especially after he becomes unconscious from an experiment with the prickly ash and now requires more physical care than she feels able to provide. She accepts a job at a hotel in Portsmouth, planning to take Roger with her to work there as well. Roger, however, having spent considerable time with the more learned Holmes, has become dissatisfied with his uneducated mother and his family's working class status, and tension develops between mother and son.
Holmes and Mrs Munro later discover Roger lying unconscious near the house, a victim of repeated stings, and he is rushed to a hospital. Distraught, Mrs Munro tries to burn down the apiary, blaming Holmes for caring only about himself and his bees. Holmes stops her, having realised that Roger has been stung by wasps; Roger had found their nest and tried to drown them to protect the bees from them, but they swarmed on him instead. Holmes and Mrs Munro burn down the wasps' nest together, and Roger begins to recover. Acknowledging the value of spiritual and personal connections with others, Holmes tells Mrs Munro that she and Roger will inherit the house and grounds after his death, encouraging her to stay in the home she knows rather than move away in order to take another unrewarding job.

Finally, Holmes realises that Watson's fictional embellishments of his last case were a sort of kindness towards Mr. Kelmot, so he writes a letter to Umezaki claiming that his father was a brave, honourable man who chose to work secretly for the British Empire. As Roger begins to teach his mother how to care for the bees, Holmes emulates a tradition he saw being practiced in Hiroshima: creating a ring of stones to serve as a place where he can recall the loved ones he has lost over the years.