movie review for lou

When I told my wife that I had to watch “An Allison Janney Action Movie” for a review this week, she was a little startled (although interested in the concept, to be fair). I’m all for unexpected casting, and the truth is that Janney has the range to do just about anything, as she’s proven with her long, award-winning career. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Janney is easily the best thing about “Lou,” but watching this talented actress give so much to a movie that gives absolutely nothing back starts to get depressing. She’s constantly trying to pull “Lou” into more interesting territory, but the clunky filmmaking and silly script keep pulling in the other direction, with her talented co-stars Logan Marshall-Green and Jurnee Smollett stuck in the tug-of-war.

In what’s sort of a gender-swapped “ Taken ,” Janney plays the title character, a loner in a remote area of the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s. The film opens with Lou in a dark place. She kills a deer to establish her tough guy bona fides for the audience, withdraws all of her money, and writes a mysterious letter to someone about inheriting her home. She slugs some bourbon and prepares to take her own life when a woman renting a home nearby bursts through the door. It’s Hannah (Smollett), and her daughter Vee ( Ridley Asha Bateman ) is missing. Oh, did I mention a storm is coming? It’s about to get ugly outside and there’s now a missing girl.

Hannah knows who took her daughter—her ex-husband Phillip (Logan Marshall-Green), who we meet beating and killing a man who was silly enough to pick up a hitchhiker. It’s revealed that Phillip was not just an abusive husband to Hannah but faked his own death so he could get to his daughter under the cover of being presumed dead. Phillip is not your ordinary sociopath—he was a special forces soldier, and he even brought along a couple of his buddies to help with the kidnapping. All of them underestimated Lou. Of course.

Once Lou and Hannah get out into the torrential rain, “Lou” should have had momentum as a survival thriller. And there’s a great action scene in a cabin wherein the title character unleashes her training on a couple of dudes who don’t see it coming. With some tight fight choreography that Janney completely sells, I was ready for the film to build from there. And then it just stalls out.

A ridiculous twist doesn’t help. Without spoiling, “Lou” has one of those suspension of disbelief character connections that requires robust writing and direction to push through it. When a movie takes a sharp, unbelievable turn, viewers are willing to set aside skepticism if the story keeps them entertained. But “Lou” can’t manage this trick, allowing us to question the logic of it all in a way that makes the emotional scenes later feel hollow. The minute you start asking whether or not someone would make that choice in a movie like “Lou,” it comes apart.

Credit to Janney for never giving into the idea that Lou has to be likable. She’s a suicidal killing machine. If anything, I wanted the film to lean into her cynicism and nihilism even more but was impressed that Janney never softens her edges. She seems to be the only person involved who understands that this movie needs to be a no-fat, no-frills thriller. Her co-stars, the usually reliable Marshall-Green and Smollett, don’t fare as well with the former turning the crazy dial up too high and the latter being given almost nothing to play beyond panicked mother.

Action movies that reshape the expectations of actors known primarily for drama can be a blast. I loved what Bob Odenkirk did in “ Nobody ,” for example. And Allison Janney proves with “Lou” that she could carry an action movie. If only she got one worth carrying.

On Netflix today.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Allison Janney as Lou
Greyston Holt as Chris
Jurnee Smollett as Hannah
Logan Marshall-Green as Philip
Ridley Asha Bateman as Vee
Matt Craven as Sheriff Rankin
Anna Foerster
Jack Stanley

Writer (story by)

Maggie Cohn
Paul Tothill

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Michael McDonough
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‘Lou’ Review: Unfinished Business

A child’s kidnapping ignites a protracted bid for redemption in this down-and-dirty thriller.

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

Whatever else one might say about the Netflix thriller “Lou,” making it must have been murder. Pummeled by near-constant rain, soaked in swampy mud and battered by frequent bouts of hand-to-hand combat, the movie’s headliners look to have suffered miserably.

Consequently, my admiration for Allison Janney, already high, skyrocketed. As the formidable title character, a woman of indeterminate vintage commonly accessorized with shovel, rifle or deer carcass, Janney leaves spry in the dust. Unfazed either by the working conditions or by Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley’s ridiculously over-the-top screenplay, she lends her grouchy character more than a ramrod spine and steely stare: She gives her a woundedness that keeps us watching long after this prolix quest for redemption should have reached its preordained conclusion.

When the plot — a dense weave of familial pain and political misdeeds — requires Lou to leave her cabin in the Pacific Northwest and help a young mother (Jurnee Smollett) reclaim her abducted preteen daughter, Lou barely hesitates. Abandoning her careful plans for a final exit, she takes off through a storm-lashed forest on the trail of the kidnapper, distraught mother in tow. The journey will be filled with perils and flashbacks, regrets and secrets as Lou excavates her past; yet the director, Anna Foerster — who, aside from the instantly forgettable “Underworld: Blood Wars” (2017) , has worked mostly in television — pays greater attention to the movie’s impressive fight choreography than to the details of its central mystery.

Methodically violent and more than a little silly, “Lou” delivers a kick in the head to ageism. When did you last hear an arthritic heroine warn a woman half her age not to slow her down?

Lou Rated R for knives, fists, bullets and a lethal tin can. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. Watch on Netflix .

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Lou review: compelling thriller boasts transformative allison janney performance.

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Over the course of three decades, Allison Janney has consistently delivered great performances across a range of genres like political TV dramas ( The West Wing ), film dramas ( I, Tonya ), and even movie musicals ( Hairspray ). The latest sees Janney transform into a mysterious, yet resourceful loner who uses her dark past to assist with finding the man who kidnapped her neighbor’s daughter. Directed by Anna Foerster from a screenplay by Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley, Lou is a quiet thriller that takes a deep dive into the consequences of one’s actions. The film enables Janney and Jurnee Smollett to command every scrap of attention through physical and emotionally compelling performances.

In a small, secluded town, Lou (Allison Janney) spends her days and evenings hunting for food and caring for her dog Jax. After coming to terms with her dangerous decisions and history, Lou is ready to move on from her dark past. Unfortunately, her plans are interrupted when her neighbor Hannah ( Jurnee Smollett ) informs Lou that her daughter Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman) has been abducted by Hannah’s ex-husband Philip (Logan Marshall-Green). Together, the two set out to uncover a terrifying truth amidst a massive storm, showcasing their perseverance and willingness to risk their lives. The rescue mission also reveals some shocking secrets, which connects them in more ways than one.

Related: Allison Janney & Jurnee Smollett Interview: Lou

Ridley Asha Bateman and Logan Marshall-Green in Lou

With Lou , Anna Foerster returns to film after a brief television directing stint with Westworld season 3 — four years after she made her directorial debut with Underworld: Blood Wars . In her latest, Foerster offers a quieter approach in her visual storytelling, concentrating on the characters to guide the plot while balancing three stories in one to discover hidden truths within their lives. By doing so, she humanizes very flawed characters in a way that viewers can connect to emotionally, even when it seems like they do not deserve it. Stylistically, Foerster never goes beyond the traditional Netflix thriller. Yet, her restraint is what allows Cohn and Stanley’s script to shine, especially when the focus is on the development of their characters.

In due time, Lou finds itself caught between moments of reticence, where the film excels, and revelation, where it tends to falter. In execution, the secrets among Lou, Hannah, and Philip are the components of the script that provide the most intrigue. This element enables Foerster to take a methodical approach in her storytelling, exposing secrets at a pace that requires a slow peel-back of the characters involved. Once the actual mysteries are unveiled, it ramps up the action and loses its early influence of great narratives centered on humanity and motherhood. On the other hand, these sequences also come at the right time to push the final act ahead full throttle.

Allison Janney and Jurnee Smollett in Lou

Whether fans of Netflix thrillers end up liking Lou is a toss up depending on preferences in the pacing of these types of stories. But there’s one thing in particular that most fans will agree with: Allison Janney gives a transformative performance. Not only does the Primetime Emmy, Golden Globe, and Academy Award-winning actress give a powerful emotional performance, but Janney also delivers a stunning showcase of strength and physicality in her fight sequences. Alongside her is Jurnee Smollett, who is always a reliable talent, capable of stealing scenes and drawing a viewer’s eye directly towards her. Janney and Smollett’s chemistry is enough to lock in attention, even when this layered script takes bizarre plot turns.

In the end, Lou is the type of Netflix film that one may be compelled to watch for the fascinating dynamic among its three main characters. Paired with exceptional performances and onscreen chemistry, Foerster’s latest feels like a step in the right direction for the director's sophomore feature film. Through a disciplined approach in her visual storytelling, Foerster highlights the emotionally captivating aspects of the story while providing emphasis on their developments as individuals. With Cohn and Stanley’s spirited screenplay humanizing even the worst of characters, Lou is bound to be a conflicting yet interesting watching experience for viewers.

Lou released on Netflix Friday, September 23. The film is 107 minutes long and rated R for violence and language.

Lou - Poster - Allison Janney & Jurnee Smollett In Forest Infront Of lake

Lou is a thriller directed by Anna Foerster, starring Allison Janney as Lou, a reclusive woman forced out of her isolated existence when a desperate mother seeks her help to find her abducted daughter. Jurnee Smollett co-stars as the frantic mother, and the film explores themes of resilience and the inherent strength of its characters.

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Lou Review: A Well-Trod Action-Thriller That Neither Flies Nor Fails

Hollywood history is replete with examples of characters whose past comes back to haunt them in one way or another: the return of an old nemesis, falling back into an old life, a character realizing their buried sins won't remain that way. It's a family of tropes that have fueled many an action-thriller from Darth Vader's connection to Obi-Wan Kenobi to a number of James Bond and "Mission: Impossible" villains, and in "Lou," these classic tropes once again find traction in a simple story that's elevated by solid performances, but not quite enough to escape the limitations of well-tread territory.

" Lou " is interesting in a number of ways. Allison Janney really works in the kind of sort of stoic and mysterious role that's typically reserved for Clint Eastwood or Liam Neeson of late, and it's a nice change of pace. Also pleasant is the story's grounding in real-world political situations that add a conceptual depth normally lacking in this sort of film. At its core, "Lou" is a story about sins coming back with a vengeance, and while that simplicity makes for a clean plot it also feels a little too easy, a bit too shallow, and barely developed outside the basics of its logline. What we're left with is an uncomplicated outing that's very watchable, marked by strong leads and little fluff. At the same time, you'd be hard-pressed to describe it to a friend in a way that sounds different from the myriad other similar films that have come before.

Strong performances in archetypal characters

Lou is a mysterious woman who lives largely off the grid, save for her beloved aging canine companion. She hunts, keeps to herself, and also clearly has baggage, as evidenced by her behaving like someone who doesn't want to live long. She has an antagonistic relationship with her sole known tenant, Hannah (Jurnee Smollett), a young single woman living with her daughter on the property Lou owns. From the outset, it's clear that Hannah is a loving mother, her daughter Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman) is a sweet kid, and Hannah will do literally anything to avoid talking about Vee's father. That's a bad sign. When Hannah's disgraced Green Beret-ex Phillip (Logan Marshall-Green) arrives and takes their daughter, it's up to Hannah and Lou (aided by the latter's Special Set of Skills) to rescue the child from the bad man's clutches.

Lou as a character is a fairly transparent archetype. Still, Janney's approach genuinely works. She's a stern character with a darker-than-expected background that brings some deep and deadly personal ties and failings to the fore. It would still be nice for the audience to have a little more meat in the characterization beyond the functional. Lou is almost entirely functional and little else, like a birthday cake without frosting.

Smollett's Hannah gets the lion's share of the emotional weight, as a mother who has survived abuse only to be faced with the loss of her daughter. While Lou is clearly the heavy between the pair, the script (co-written by Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley) makes the smart choice of letting her find her inner badass along the journey instead of hiding behind the "stoic hero." The changes are subtle, but they're welcome and give the performers a bit more novelty than one might expect.

Marshall-Green's villainous Phillip is ably performed, with an interesting blend of evident sociopathy behind the manipulative facade of a loving father. Altogether it makes for a trio of performances that succeed where they need to, though all three characters remain somewhat underwritten in ways that belie the potential dramatic heft of their backstory. The characters seem a little perfunctory and thin, but the performers themselves elevate the film a few layers beyond its otherwise sparse scripting.

A palatable but too-streamlined action-thriller

The script, as a whole, works, but just barely, with a set of events so streamlined they approach "Beast" territory. That certainly isn't a bad thing, of course, but here it leaves very little room for surprise or novelty. When it does deviate from simplicity, as when we find out the surprising intersection of certain backstories, it feels like too big a swing taken too quickly. There are also easy ways to add layers to our experience of the story, but we don't get to see them. It's hard to discuss without spoiling major twists, but it would be nice to actually see some glimpses of events that are instead explicitly spelled out for the audience.

"Lou" avoids major pitfalls and plot holes, but it does so via simplicity that leaves little room for bells and whistles. The film's biggest issue from a plot standpoint is a sudden character change from Lou, a pivot towards the end in which her care for Vee (which she had not shown prior) grows abruptly and from nowhere. It's a nice evolution for her formerly static character, but it comes too suddenly to make sense for so bold a shift.

Regarding the film's more action-heavy elements, "Lou" treads more lightly than one might expect given the backgrounds of its central characters. What is there, however, works. One particular scene with Lou in a cabin with ... shall we say, ruffians, gives Janney the opportunity to dispatch foes with a deadly roughness that belies her brutish efficiency as a combatant. The finale, in which all three major players get in the thick of the crisis, showcases Phillip's ruthlessness, Lou's ingenuity, and Hannah's ability to dig deep for the strength to do some difficult things. It's a smart choice to allow Smollett to get some badassery in since audiences already know she excels in it , and it moves her character arc towards a welcome resolution. These are high points in the film, and they work.

Altogether, "Lou" isn't a bad film, it's just so straightforward and archetypal that it falls short of its potential. What saves it from being forgettable are strong performances from its central players and Janney's ability to land a different take on that archetype. There are smart choices here and characters with potential, but in the end, it's an action-thriller that's too thin to be anything other than "decent."

/Film Rating: 6 out of 10

Flickering Myth

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Movie Review – Lou (2022)

September 26, 2022 by Robert Kojder

Lou , 2022.

Directed by Anna Foerster. Starring Allison Janney, Jurnee Smollett, Logan Marshall-Green, Ridley Asha Bateman, Greyston Holt, Matt Craven, Toby Levins, Marci T. House, and Jaycie Dotin.

A storm rages. A young girl is kidnapped. Her mother teams up with the mysterious woman next door to pursue the kidnapper, a journey that tests their limits and exposes shocking secrets from their pasts.

Add Allison Janney to the growing list of older but capable action stars. A debut directorial effort from Anna Foerster, based on a story from Maggie Cohn, who wrote the script alongside Jack Stanley, Lou opens with the eponymous older woman penning a suicide note filled with regrets while leaving behind some cash for an unknown character. With a shotgun locked and loaded, pressed against her temple, the filmmakers rewind time to that morning, which follows Lou and the remote island town preparing for an impending catastrophic storm (one that will shut down all transportation coming in and out.

The day also reveals that Lou takes place during the Reagan administration (briefly mentioned on television screens to explain away a lack of modern technology once the proceedings shift into a thrilling cat and mouse game), but what sticks out most is Allison Janney’s cold and steely tough persona; she’s particularly skilled at tracking and hunting (partnering up with her dog Jax), even when conversing with a young woman and her daughter about upcoming rent.

That woman is Hannah (Jurnee Smollett), who is trying to keep her young daughter Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman) hidden from an abusive Special Forces demolition expert ex-boyfriend (a man that she doesn’t believe for a second is dead, despite what she is told), a complete psychopath played by Logan Marshall-Green.

For Lou’s alienating antisocial behavior and payment strictness, there’s also a visible sense of softness and pained remorse underneath that rocky exterior and a desire to open up about something important or say something kind, but without the courage or ability to find the words to do so. Nevertheless, once the evil man fueled by rage locates and kidnaps Vee, that protective instinct is triggered; moments before attempting suicide, Lou has been granted an admittedly cliché shot at redemption.

There is no denying that Lou is pulling from the action movie playbook while also inserting a preposterous reveal halfway through that threatens to strike down every bit of goodwill like relentless lightning. However, such familiarity turns out to be mostly irrelevant since the filmmakers are so competent and assured in execution, receiving a boost from committed performances and excellent photography from Michael McDonough embracing the harsh environmental elements (touched up by some impressive visual effects).

Instead, Lou functions like satisfying trash, partly because the film is interested in trying to say something about motherhood and stubborn lone wolf behavior with its revelations. It’s nothing profound, but that’s also not necessary, given the satisfying bombastic material.

Lou is wise enough to realize that this is Allison Janney’s show, utilizing her survivalist resources and hardened combat abilities to hang with generic henchmen in brutal brawls, cleverly making use of their surroundings. That’s not to say Jurnee Smollett doesn’t also get a chance to impress with physicality, as they both appear as if they have gone through hell and back during their trek across the jungle during endangering weather.

There’s a sequence involving a wooden bridge knocked sideways that they must hang off and shimmy across, showcasing some creative thought went into these set pieces, as does a stunningly shot hand-to-hand final battle set against a beach’s crashing waves. It’s easy to get swept up in such exhilarating action scenes, striking photography, and a conflicted yet fierce turn from Allison Janney, even if the story and revelations are silly.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Review: Alison Janney grows taciturn in the thriller ‘Lou,’ plus more movies to watch at home

A woman with a rifle and a woman with a flashlight in the rain beside a burning vehicle in the movie "Lou."

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Allison Janney has spent much of her career playing women who can outthink and outtalk just about anyone. As the title character in the thriller “Lou,” Janney again plays someone two or three steps ahead of whomever crosses her path — though this time she doesn’t talk so much, because she doesn’t want to risk spilling one of her many secrets.

Directed by Ann Foerster from a screenplay co-written by Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley, “Lou” stars Janney as a reclusive landowner in a small Pacific Northwest coastal community in the late 1980s. Set during a dangerous storm, the film follows Lou’s cash-strapped tenant Hannah (Jurnee Smollett), who needs help when her unreliable ex, Phillip (Logan Marshall-Green), kidnaps their young daughter for reasons that may have something to do with the other shady guys who are creeping around in the woods. As Lou heads out into the rain-soaked wilderness to straighten all this out, she proves so surprisingly capable at tracking and killing that Hannah quickly realizes that her prickly landlord must have a dark past.

The mystery of who Lou is and why she takes an interest in Hannah isn’t as surprising as the movie makes it out to be; but Janney is so commanding as an unlikely action hero that the picture still works. The plot races from one tense outdoor confrontation to the next, as “Lou” tells a simple but effective story about two women enduring the harshness of the elements and the machinations of violent men.

‘Lou.’ R, for violence and language. 1 hour, 47 minutes. Available on Netflix

‘Meet Cute’

Like a lot of recent movies and TV shows about time-loops, the romantic dramedy “Meet Cute” doesn’t waste time setting up its premise. Kaley Cuoco plays Sheila, who in the opening scene hits on Gary (Pete Davidson) in a bar, and confesses something: She has access to a time machine that can reset the past 24 hours, and she has been using it over and over to relive their first magical night together. Director Alex Lehmann and screenwriter Noga Pnueli presume their audience is familiar with the likes of “Groundhog Day” and “Palm Springs,” so they get straight to the action, which sees Sheila repeatedly tweaking small details in her never-ending date with Gary.

Unlike “Groundhog Day” and “Palm Springs” (and “Russian Doll,” “Edge of Tomorrow,” “Happy Death Day,” “Source Code,” etc.), “Meet Cute” falls into a rut fairly quickly, because it lacks the breadth of imagination that makes the best time-loop stories work. All of Sheila’s machinations come from a mundane place: She’s broken and Gary’s broken; and so they spend most of their time together just enjoying the wonders of New York City while comparing their respective traumas. Even the rules of the time-loop stop mattering after a while.

Lehmann does make the city look magnificent; and Cuoco and Davidson throw themselves fully into these characters, who are equal parts funny, awkward and dark. But while there’s the germ of a great time-loop plot idea here — the notion that even the greatest date won’t keep a person happy forever — Lehmann and Pnueli don’t expand on it enough, or do anything surprising or cool. The one idea turns out to be the only idea, and barely worth repeating.

‘Meet Cute.’ TV-MA, for violence, coarse language and smoking. 1 hour, 29 minutes. Available on Peacock

Natascha McElhone is a wonder in writer-director Valerie Buhagiar’s charming dramedy “Carmen,” a film about a long-overlooked woman who finally comes out of her shell and puts a lifetime of silent observations to use. McElhone plays Carmen, who has spent decades working as a housekeeper for her brother, a Catholic priest on the island of Malta. When he dies, the diocese evicts her; but Carmen still has the keys to the church, where she hides out and secretly hears confessions from women who prefer her practical advice to her brother’s old-fashioned penance.

“Carmen” relies too much on coincidences to keep its story going; and Buhagiar threads in a few too many impressionistic flashbacks to the heroine’s youth and to the romance her family forced her to abandon. But McElhone strikes a fine balance between humor and pathos, playing someone who has spent 30 years watching — and forming opinions — as her neighbors have struggled with the complications of couplehood, parenthood and making ends meet. When she starts breaking rules, making money and dressing pretty, Carmen find herself both exhilarated and terrified. The audience gets to feel all this right along with her, as she lives what she’d previously only studied.

‘Carmen.’ In Maltese and English with English subtitles Not rated. 1 hour, 27 minutes. Available on VOD

‘The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales’

The activist and filmmaker Abigail Disney has often been critical of the company her grandfather Roy and her granduncle Walt co-founded back in the 1920s, but she’s rarely taken her family’s legacy on as directly as she does in the documentary “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,” which she co-directed with Kathleen Hughes. The movie follows Disney’s efforts in recent years to shame the Walt Disney Co. for the vast disparity between its executive compensation and the paltry wages paid to its lowest-level employees, who sometimes have to rely on food banks and unsafe housing to survive.

As Disney makes clear, her family’s business is far from the worst offender when it comes to robbing workers of their fundamental dignity. But because of what Walt Disney represents — and because the company used to be a relatively responsible corporate citizen — she and Hughes use them as an example of how far American business has drifted from its mid-20th century ideals. This is an unapologetic advocacy doc; and as such it’s likely to rub some viewers the wrong way. But even those who want to watch it just to argue should find that “The American Dream” is a worthy opponent.

‘The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.’ Not rated. 1 hour, 27 minutes. Available on VOD

‘Me to Play’

Veteran New York actors Dan Moran and Chris Jones spent decades working on the stage and screen before both men were stricken with the debilitating physical effects of Parkinson’s disease, which has made it difficult for them to remember lines and hit marks. Director Jim Bernfield’s short and sweet documentary “Me to Play” follows Moran and Jones as they work with some of their old colleagues to mount a production of Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame,” a play with existentialist and apocalyptic themes that the two leads find especially resonant. The film charts the often difficult rehearsal process, while also spending time with the actors’ family members and friends, who in some cases are unusually honest about what a nightmare it’s been to see someone they love decline. “Me to Play” doesn’t make some grand pronouncement about living with illness or theater as therapy. It’s a small slice of life about a couple of guys trying to exemplify that classic Beckett quote: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”

‘Me to Play.’ Not rated. 1 hour, 12 minutes. Available on VOD and Fandor

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“Nope” is the latest mind-bending genre film from “Get Out”/“Us” writer-director Jordan Peele, who this time fuses horror, science-fiction, westerns and social satire in a story about horse-ranchers encountering space aliens. The ace cast includes Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun in a movie that defies easy description or explanation and is best experienced with as little advance knowledge as possible. Available on VOD

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“Exotica” was a pivotal film for the Canadian writer-director Atom Egoyan , applying his fascination with sexual desire and modern alienation to a captivating and accessible story about a man trying to overcome personal tragedy through the rituals of strip club table dances. The extras on the new Criterion Collection Blu-ray contextualize the movie’s place in Egoyan’s career, via in-depth conversations and multiple bonus films. Criterion

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Lou’ on Netflix, in Which Allison Janney Gets Grim and Grizzled for a Survivalist Suspense-Thriller

Where to stream:.

Allison Janney

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Now on Netflix, Lou sees Allison Janney get her The Old Man on. She plays a dog owner and former CIA agent who finds herself in a circumstance that ends her quiet life of seclusion and compels her to once again kick some ass – and you just want her to find Jeff Bridges on whatever dating app retired government spies with considerable hand-to-hand skills and checkered pasts use so they can meet and hang out at the dog park, and maybe have a nice chat over pie and coffee afterward. Seems like it would be psychologically productive. The movie boasts J.J. Abrams as a producer, and is directed by Anna Foerster, a longtime collaborator with Roland Emmerich, who thankfully with her second directorial effort (the first: Underworld: Blood Wars ) shows little influence from the disaster-movie master in crafting a fairly small-scale action-suspense story. And you know what? It ain’t half bad.

LOU : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Lou (Janney) looks like she’s really seen some shit. Probably done some shit, too. She’s mostly expressionless as she hunts a deer, puts a bullet in a deer, butchers a deer, burns some classified documents in the fireplace, finishes a glass of whiskey and props her rifle under her chin. Thunder booms and lightning crackles. But she doesn’t pull the trigger – no, this is one of those framing devices you see in movies. You know, the kind that want to really hook ya . We jump back a day or two. She lives on one of the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state. Reagan’s president. The cars are boxy. There’s something about the Iran-Contra scandal on the TV, which is boxy, too. We hear Bon Jovi on the soundtrack. I’d wager it’s about 1987.

Lou drives her rickety truck alongside Hannah (Jurnee Smollett) and reminds her brusquely that the rent’s due. Hannah and her daughter Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman) live in a mobile home on Lou’s property. Lou hovers for a second. Is she gonna say something? She looks like she’s gonna say something. But she’s got years of practice of not saying something, so she doesn’t say something.That night, the storm rages. Hannah nestles Vee into bed while across the way Lou scratches out her suicide note. The power goes out and while Hannah bears the elements outside to check the electrical box, someone snatches Vee and R-U-N-N-O-F-Ts. Hannah’s car is dead. She interrupts Lou’s final moments to find out that Lou’s power is also out and Lou’s phone is dead and then Lou’s truck explodes. Someone planned this: Hannah’s ex/Vee’s dad, a former Green Beret, war criminal and explosives expert. He’s supposed to be dead. But he ain’t dead.

Alrighty then. They’ll have to track him through the woods, Lou says. Lou helps Hannah gear up – flashlights, extra batteries, deer rifle, etc. Lou hands Hannah a knife and says if some man attacks her, “go for the eyes.” Damn. What’s Lou capable of? A lot, of course. A lot. They trek through the ferns and pouring rain and there’s a couple dangerous adversaries and a precarious rope bridge and a lot of mud and rock and a twist or two in the narrative path and some bad decisions made by the characters (but actually the screenwriters) and are we biting our nails yet? Yeah, a little bit.

Allison Janney in black and white on a bright orange background

Allison Janney Didn’t Think She’d Get To Do A Movie Like ‘Lou:’ “I Never Thought It Would Happen”

Performance Worth Watching: Is Janney the Performance Worth Watching in every movie she’s in? Pretty much. She consistently brings extra oomph to characters like Lou, who benefits from the extra dimension Janney brings to cliche-ridden characters.

Memorable Dialogue: Lou starts doing some hardcore survivalist shit:

Hannah: How do you know all this stuff? Lou: Girl Scouts.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: These two women are tough as nails and they’re going to make that man pay . He’s a killer and an abuser and a psycho and he’s endangering his own child on purpose. There’s more to his motivation, but that’s a muddled junkheap of explainy-plot in a third act that somewhat diminishes the impact of the taut suspense built up during the first two, when Hannah and Lou are really put through the ringer: stumbles and tumbles and wounds and inclement weather and a rather tense scuffle with antagonists, all rendering them very wet and weary and limping and reliant on adrenaline and Hannah’s Mom Powers, which range from resilience to extra-resilient resilience.

Foerster keenly establishes the beautiful-but-dangerous setting and leans heavily into the grim atmosphere so everything tonally jibes by the time the story gets markedly dark near the end, and I hope I’m not saying too much by describing it as tangentially oedipal. That stuff isn’t wholly convincing; it’s overwrought, and could use another run through the writers’ room. So I suggest you lean into the craft of the film, which is fast-paced and edited extra-crispy so you feel the tension of the situation and the fortitude of the characters’ predicament, which gets brutal at times: Women Can Be Violent Too, you know. Of course you know. That assertion has been made by a variety of feminist film narratives, which Lou mimics with some righteousness, but never quite refreshes or reinvigorates. And that’s OK – there’s a visceral immediacy to Hannah and Lou’s survivalism that keeps us in the moment. But investing in the characters’ emotional journeys is a less rewarding endeavor.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Lou is a worthy suspense-thriller bolstered by strong performances and direction. And you could do far worse than watching Janney dig in and get dirty for 100 minutes.

Will you stream or skip the survivalist suspense-thriller #LouNetflix on @netflix ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) September 23, 2022

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com .

Stream It Or Skip It
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AV Undercover

In Lou , Allison Janney is a tight-lipped, tough-as-nails action heroine

Like nobody and taken before it, anna foerster's thriller transforms a serious actor into a convincing ass-kicker.

In Lou , it’s flat-out fun to see Allison Janney get to make her own version of Taken and Nobody . And she plays the vengeful, flawed savior role with just as much no-nonsense determination, rigorous gusto, and grizzled grit as Liam Neeson and Bob Odenkirk ever could—combined. Anna Foerster (who helmed the under-valued Underworld: Blood Wars ) nimbly directs her first action-thriller, which follows a world-weary woman who gets another stab (and punch and kick…) at redemption when someone from her past resurfaces. Although it’s slightly overlong, the movie more than measures up to those of her male counterparts in the “serious actor starts kicking ass” subgenre.

They say that no man is an island, but Lou (Allison Janney) has certainly relegated herself to one on Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest. The years have clearly worn on her, turning her abrasive to many of the townsfolk, yet she’s still compassionate enough to tend to her loyal dog Jax (played by dog-actors Ozzie and Jersey). Her sharpshooting skills and body are beginning to betray her, adding to the deterioration of what’s left of her conscience. This hasn’t stopped Sherriff Rawlins (Matt Craven) from trying to break down her walls, flirting delicately with her when she comes into town.

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Lou has also—literally and figuratively—buried some big secrets in her backyard: documents telling of a sordid past she’s clearly been running from for years. After digging them up for disposal before committing suicide, she gets interrupted by her tenant Hannah (Jurnee Smollett) frantically searching for her young daughter Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman), who’s been kidnapped by dangerous sociopath/ex-Green Beret Philip (Logan Marshall-Green) during a raging storm. Despite her earlier plans, Lou becomes compelled to utilize her long-buried “special set of skills” to rescue Vee, even as she (perhaps obviously) reckons with unresolved trauma of her own.

Foerster and screenwriters Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley conceive a landscape full of allusions and metaphors: a cavernous divide Lou and Hannah must cross in their pursuit of Philip and Vee pulls double duty as symbolism, but it also functions plainly to induce sweaty-palmed intensity. Each location serves as a mirror for both the internal and external stakes for these characters, unraveling Lou and Philip’s backstories through a handful of heavy exposition dumps even as they intensify their conflict.

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Lou’s chosen introverted lifestyle works well in terms of her inevitable, softly developed, redemptive arc. Her motivation isn’t solely to rescue a pint-sized damsel in distress, though that’s one goal, but to make right some previous wrongs—even with the kidnapper. Unlike the hero at the heart of Nobody , who’s drawn back to violence because his ego takes a hit, she’s called into action to save someone greater than herself. That it offers a means to an end—possibly ending her life by helping someone else—helps her atone for past transgressions weighing silently on her shoulders.

The workmanlike fight sequences are scrappy, skillful and precisely executed, never populated with overused moves. Stunt coordinator Dan Shea and fight choreographer Daniel Bernhardt make use of everyday objects for Lou to fashion into weapons, whether that be a crudely opened soup can or a pot boiling on a stove. These gritty, grimy fisticuffs leave dirt under these characters’ nails. A climactic hand-to-hand combat sequence where two maimed characters duke it out amidst rough ocean waves is fueled by anger, sorrow and regret. The moment, relying heavily on composer Nima Fakhrara’s grim, mournful score, emphasizes there are no winners. Each has something major to lose, everything from their guilt to their glory.

In Janney’s capable hands, our heroine is fully fleshed out, yet lean with more gristle on the bone than meat. She delivers zingy one-liners as well as she does a knock-out punch. Her refreshing spin on this archetype, blending masculine bravado and bluster with feminine wit and wisdom, elevates the spartan material. Smollett’s performance doesn’t quite rise to the same level—unfortunate since she’s such a dynamic scene-stealer in Birds Of Prey and Spiderhead . Hannah’s desperation remains on the surface, but when she’s called upon to give further dimension to her ensuing pressure-cooker scenarios, she wavers. The scene where she exposes her scars to Lou is built to be a revelatory moment, but rather than broadening the emotional scope, it never evolves beyond the superficial.

Tiny innovative touches to the picture’s construction, from its narrative components to its technical elements, keep things compelling and propulsive. Foerster’s film isn’t interested in total reinvention, nor is it particularly concerned with deconstructing and challenging genre tropes. Lou ’s success lies in streamlining the expected rhythms of a movie where a serious actor starts kicking ass, and the tweaking them ever so slightly to make every punch land with compelling—if not quite unique—power.

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‘Lou’ Review: Allison Janney Deserves a Better ‘Taken’ Rip-Off

David ehrlich.

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So many skilled and watchable actors have been plugged into poorly made “Taken” rip-offs over the last dozen years or so — including Jennifer Garner, Pierce Brosnan, Zoe Saldaña, Liam Neeson, Liam Neeson, and Liam Neeson — and yet I still couldn’t help but get excited by the idea of casting Allison Janney as a grizzled “old woman” who grabs the nearest shotgun when some military-grade baddies kidnap the little girl who’s living on her property. C.J. Cregg doing Clint Eastwood? If that’s not enough to pump fresh life into action cinema’s hackiest sub-genre then I don’t know what is.

Neither, apparently, does anyone involved in Netflix ’s “ Lou ,” a thriller so bland and threadbare it’s hard to imagine this one-time Paramount production would ever wind up anywhere else.

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The premise couldn’t be any simpler, even if the wisps of a plot that screenwriters Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley layer on top of it are impressively absurd: Janney plays Lou, a suicidal crank who lives on a forest-y island off the coast of Seattle with her dog, Jax (presumably named after the former “Vanderpump Rules” character of the same name, even though “Lou” is set during the Reagan administration for reasons that are never made clear). For the last few months, Lou has been renting the trailer behind her house to a widowed mom named Hannah ( Jurnee Smollett ) and her daughter Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman), both of whom she’s happy to antagonize at every opportunity — Lou’s weirdly aggressive about collecting rent for someone who’s planning to blow her own brains out with a shotgun as soon as night falls.

In a shocking twist of events, however, Lou is stopped from killing herself 10 minutes into the movie that bears her name. Hannah bursts into the house at just the right moment with an urgent request for help. Good news: Her husband Philip ( Logan Marshall-Green ) is very much alive! Bad news: He’s kidnapped Vee during the worst rainstorm in decades. Oh, he’s also a former Green Beret, and he’s brought two friends along for the fun. Unfortunately for them, Lou has some relevant experience of her own — a very special set of skills that she honed as a spy for the CIA.

So begins a damp and tedious game of cat-and-mouse that “Underworld: Blood Wars” director Anna Foerster struggles to save from its own nonsense. Some of that nonsense is amusingly ridiculous, at least so far as Philip’s sociopathy is concerned; between his fixation with the band Toto, his penchant for crushing butterflies in his bare hands, and the adorable little bomb he makes out of Vee’s old music box in the first act, you can almost feel a movie with some actual (deranged) personality being suffocated to death under the bargain-bin thriller on screen. And the creepy postcards he leaves behind… don’t even get me started on creepy postcards.

But even in spite of a wild — and wildly unbelievable — second act twist that reframes the relationship between this COVID-friendly story’s three major characters, “Lou” still just feels like someone typed “Allison Janney in ‘Taken’” into Dall·E 2 and then used the images the algorithm spat out for storyboards. Fun as it is to watch a stone-faced Janney grumble about how “the world’s not a playground” and beat some bad guys to death with a coffee pot, Foerster’s movie is frustratingly light on both.

Janney makes a great murderous curmudgeon, but the script’s big reveal strands the actress with a “layered” character who’s never given the chance to transcend the most basic aspects of her archetype. Worse: She only gets to kill like three people! The character she played in “Mom” probably racked up a higher body count! (I haven’t seen that show, but surely there was some homicide sprinkled across those 170 episodes). The majority of “Lou” is wasted on its reluctant heroine nagging Hannah to move faster as they run through the rain or climb up muddy embankments while Philip waits for them in a cave somewhere.

A movie about Allison Janney going full “Commando” on a bunch of hapless redshirts sounds absolutely fantastic — at its best, “Lou” merely proves that it would be.

“Lou” starts streaming on Netflix Friday, September 23.

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Home » Movie News » Lou Review

Plot: A storm rages. A young girl is kidnapped. Her mother teams up with the mysterious woman next door to pursue the kidnapper – a journey that tests their limits and exposes shocking secrets from their pasts.

Review: For every heavily marketed movie premiering on Netflix, there are dozens that fly under the radar. More often than not, these movies are throwaway programming designed to bulk up the selection that Netflix has to offer but every now and then there is a solid flick that is worth your attention. Lou is an unexpected action movie with an even more unexpected lead role from Oscar-winning actress Allison Janney who earns a spot alongside Keanu Reeves, Charlize Theron, Bob Odenkirk, and Joey King in the John Wick school of action heroes. A nice throwback to action movies of the 80s and 90s, Lou is a badass thriller that should be at the top of everyone’s streaming list this weekend.

The best thing about Lou is that the trailer does not give away too much of the plot. Set in the 1980s, the film concerns a single mother, Hannah ( Jurnee Smollett ), who lives with her daughter Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman) on a remote island. Living next door is the gruff Lou Amell ( Allison Janney ), a survivalist whose only companion is her dog, Jax. One night, Vee is kidnapped by a man (Logan Marshall-Green) which forces Lou to help Hannah track down Vee and rescue her. Encountering some mercenaries along the way, Lou employs a set of combat skills that reveal elements of her past that she has not shared for years. As a basic setup, Lou does not have a story that is all that unlike countless action movies that came before it, but it does offer some twists to the formula throughout that set this film apart.

At the top of the distinctions that Lou brings to the table is Allison Janney. At 62, she is the most unlikely action movie lead in recent memory, performing some intense hand-to-hand combat sequences that are right up there with not only actresses half her age but even many of her male counterparts. Janney has long been a phenomenal dramatic and comedic actor but in Lou she channels all of her skills plus new dimensions we have never seen from her. Lou as a character is similar in ways to Jeff Bridges recent role in the FX series The Old Man which featured the acclaimed actor playing a cinematic creation in a realistic manner. Janney never goes to the level of John Wick or Atomic Blonde but rather plays a character whose skills are believable and realistic in a story that is grounded rather than being over the top.

It also helps that Lou doesn’t try to create stakes that are ridiculous. Yes, the story does require some suspension of disbelief, but rather than involving crime syndicates or villains bent on worldwide domination, Lou focuses on a specific set of characters and circumstances that play directly into the 1980s time period. Janney works well alongside Jurnee Smollett who has turned in a series of solid turns in HBO’s Lovecraft Country and the recent Netflix film Spiderhead. Here, she never comes across as a hindrance to the plot but holds her own as a mother who would do anything to save her child. Logan Marshall-Green is equally good as the damaged antagonist whose past is integral to the plot of the story. The vast majority of this movie is these three characters which helps the story feel more immediate and more impactful.

Produced by J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot, Lou is the first screenplay from Maggie Cohn ( American Crime Story, The Staircase ) and Jack Stanley who channel familiar action tropes into a script that never feels cliche or formulaic. At the outset, I kept expecting the movie to turn into every other revenge or chase movie I had seen before, but it continued to surprise me throughout. A lot of credit for that is owed to director Anna Foerster. While Foerster has directed several television series like Westworld and Jessica Jones , her sole film credit is on Underworld: Blood Wars . Foerster has worked on every film Roland Emmerich has made since Independence Day, so she has a good grasp of spectacle. Lou doesn’t ever go to the level of an Emmerich scale film but the cinematography here makes excellent use of the drab Pacific Northwest setting and limits the special effects work to only necessary moments.

Lou is a fast-paced action movie that manages to keep the pace moving and never slowing down. This is a movie that could have been a surprise hit in movie theaters during the pre-COVID era but now is a great flick for the millions with Netflix at their disposal. Allison Janney has now proven that there is absolutely nothing she cannot do when it comes to acting and has given one of her strongest performances in Lou . I would be shocked if this movie didn’t garner a lot of chatter about putting Janney in more roles like this and maybe even exploring more about this character in an ongoing franchise. As a standalone, Lou is a lot of fun and one of the better Netflix originals in a long time.

About the Author

Alex Maidy has been a JoBlo.com editor, columnist, and critic since 2012. A Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and a member of Chicago Indie Critics, Alex has been JoBlo.com's primary TV critic and ran columns including Top Ten and The UnPopular Opinion. When not riling up fans with his hot takes, Alex is an avid reader and aspiring novelist.

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Common Sense Says
Parents Say 0 Reviews
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Common Sense Media Review

Intense revenge thriller has violence, gore, language.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 16+?

Violence, suspense, and peril throughout. A person prepares to commit suicide by

"F--k," "s--t," "ass," "a--hole," "damn," "goddamn," "hell," "son of a bitch," "

A man flirts with a woman he seems to be in a relationship with.

Ford, GMC, Girl Scouts, CIA, Special Armed Forces.

A woman drinks liquor. A man mentions having been drunk with a woman.

Any Positive Content?

Lou and Hannah both put their lives at risk for kidnapped child Vee. The local s

Main characters are White and Black.

Treat people humanely, and keep your family close. Not every woman is cut out fo

Violence & Scariness

Violence, suspense, and peril throughout. A person prepares to commit suicide by rifle. Stabbings, shootings, burns, bites, near-death situations, falls, bombs, and fights are shown up close. Some gory detail of blood and dead bodies is visualized. Footage and images of war are shown. A little girl is kidnapped and drugged to go to sleep. A woman describes her experience as the victim of domestic abuse, and she has scars on her arm. The animal world is Darwinian -- a broken butterfly must be killed, animals eat the carcasses of others or are left for dead.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

"F--k," "s--t," "ass," "a--hole," "damn," "goddamn," "hell," "son of a bitch," "Jesus Christ," "coward," "gnarly."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Role Models

Lou and Hannah both put their lives at risk for kidnapped child Vee. The local sheriff disobeys federal orders to help his townspeople and neighbors.

Diverse Representations

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Positive Messages

Treat people humanely, and keep your family close. Not every woman is cut out for motherhood. Parents will often, but not always, do anything for the benefit of their kids. Childhood experiences can have long-term impacts and carry over as trauma.

Parents need to know that Lou is a graphically violent and suspenseful thriller about two women attempting to rescue a child who has been kidnapped by her deranged father. Among the scary scenes are a person preparing to commit suicide by gun and skirmishes between people that result in stabbings, shootings, burns, bombs, and bites. Dead bodies are shown, as is a lot of blood, and two women face near-death situations. In conversation, people also describe or recall traumatic past experiences, including as a result of military or government work. Language includes "f--k," "s--t," "ass," "a--hole," "damn," "goddamn," "hell," "son of a bitch," and "Jesus Christ." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

LOU (Allison Janney) is a grey-haired woman living alone in the woods hiding a past that nobody seems to know about in her small, Northwest island community. One night during a power outage caused by a thunderstorm, her neighbor, Hannah ( Jurnee Smollett ), runs into the house claiming that her daughter, Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman), has been kidnapped. She's surprised when Lou immediately pulls together a bunch of weapons and sets out to rescue the child. Against Lou's wishes, Hannah follows her, and the two venture into the rainy forest to track the kidnapper, Vee's father Philip ( Logan Marshall-Green ). In the course of their treacherous pursuit, the two will face physical danger and find out more about each other than they ever imagined.

Is It Any Good?

This thriller is all about mood, and it's successful in building suspense through enigmatic characters, gory action, eerie music, and a rainy wooded setting. We're introduced to title character Lou from low angles and often within frames, making the statuesque Janney appear even more imposing, but also potentially boxed in. Details to explain this, and other characters' actions, are only slowly revealed, allowing the film to focus on action but keep the viewer curious about motivation. The constant rain infuses the Pacific Northwest setting with a damp, muddy greyness. Indigenous fauna is also used for effect, from a broken butterfly to predator birds and animals devouring other animals. Eerie music and regular thunderclaps add to the tension.

A film like this can succeed in ambiance but still fail if the actors aren't up to the job, which in this case requires emotional as well as physical performances. Janney brings gravitas to every role, and she's interestingly cast against type here as an irascible and fierce loner living alone in the woods with her dog. It's a role typically written for men (think Eastwood, Costner, or Neeson), but it has a uniquely female twist here (no spoilers). Smollett is also believable as a woman trying to escape her past and build a future for herself and her young daughter. The characters' backgrounds and the historical events alluded to in the film could have been exploited more, and some gratuitously violent scenes skipped.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how violence is portrayed in Lou . Is it glamorized or glorified in any way? How do physical violence and psychological trauma connect in this story?

How does the film incorporate historical facts and fictionalized experiences involving the US military and spy agencies into the storyline? Where could you go for more information to distinguish fact from fiction?

Are Lou's actions justified in the search for Vee? Did you see the plot twist coming? What did you make of the ending of the film?

How do the setting and use of sound contribute to a sense of suspense?

Movie Details

On DVD or streaming : September 23, 2022
Cast : Allison Janney , Jurnee Smollett , Logan Marshall-Green
Director : Anna Foerster
Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors, Black actors
Studio : Netflix
Genre : Thriller
Run time : 107 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : violence and language
Last updated : February 17, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Rebel ridge review: this is how you f*cking do it, it's time to admit killers of the flower moon wasn't that good.

It was Liam Neeson's role in Taken that many people credit as marking a dramatic shift in action movie stardom. At the time, the 56-year-old seemed unlikely to launch a major action franchise, and everyone was surprised with how much it rubbed off on the cultural canvas, with additional older men taking on action movies , from Keanu Reeves to Bob Odenkirk. However, it really wasn't a big deal. Older men have headlined action movies since there were action movies — Roger Moore was 57 in View to a Kill , Sean Connery was 66 in The Rock , and even Daniel Craig was 53 when No Time to Die was released, just looking at actors who've played James Bond . Older male action stars aren't anything new; older female ones, however, are a different story.

Aside from Helen Mirren's fun performances in the Red films (while she was in her 60s), Jamie Lee Curtis' recent Halloween movies, and Michelle Yeoh's recent turn in Everything Everywhere All at Once at the age of 59, there really haven't been any older female action stars. At the age of 62, Allison Janney has just proved that there should be. While her new film Lou might not be as good as her performance is, the Netflix movie's nonetheless captivating because of it.

The Movie Lou is Not as Good as the Character Lou

Allison Janney and Jurnee Smollett in the Netflix movie Lou

Janney plays the titular Lou, a grumpy older woman who lives alone ten miles outside of town. She is solitude incarnate, and while the film's script often paints her as a knockoff version of Lee Curtis' gray-haired character Laurie Strode in the Halloween reboots, Janney makes Lou her own woman. She's the kind of tough, capable person who drags a gutted deer by the antlers through the woods, having killed more food for her freezer. Aside from going hunting with her dog, she's the landlord for a young mother and her daughter, Hannah and Vee. She's terse with them, but Janney opens up spaces in between the sentences that indicate much more depth than the weak script gives her.

If Lou seems more like she's in hiding than in the golden years of retirement, that's because she actually is. The film takes place in the early '80s after the notorious Iran-Contra affair, which Lou knows much more about than the average American (then and today, unfortunately). She was an operative for the CIA, having worked in the field for nearly three decades, and she has the classified documents and film negatives to prove it (the film goes about this in a painfully obvious way, to the extent that it's surprising that they didn't literally label a film canister with the word "Zapruder").

She isn't a glamorous, romanticized spy, though, and the film actually opens with her preparing to kill herself. She's interrupted by her tenant Hannah after Vee is kidnapped by the father, previously presumed dead. In what initially seems like a very stupid, overly fabricated coincidence but turns out to be more than it seems, the paternal kidnapper turns out to also have a CIA background. He had faked his own death after the agency attempted to arrest him for sadistic torture and the murder of civilians (which hardly seems criminal for the CIA), and now he's back for his daughter. Lou, deciding to do something good for the world after her years of ruining it with the CIA, suits up to track him down and rescue Vee.

Allison Janney Kills it in Lou

Allison Janney kills some guy with a can in the Netflix movie Lou

The very first frame of the film features Janney's silhouette in a doorframe, immediately bringing to mind that John Wayne classic The Searchers and its iconic final shot. It's a clever way to introduce a film about a kidnapped child and the tough old crank who hunts her down, swapping out the genders and setting the stage for the film's similar themes — broken families and cycles of violence. If the violently unstable Phillip, his former wife Hannah, and their daughter Vee are the narrative dots, then the equally violent Lou connects them.

Related: Allison Janney's Best Performances, Ranked

The emotional connections, on the other hand, are never really sold. Jurnee Smollett (who plays Hannah here) is charming and convincing on her own, but she doesn't have much chemistry with anyone in the film, even her daughter Vee (played by Ridley Asha Bateman, who seems surprisingly disinterested in everything that happens). That lack of chemistry actually makes sense for Lou, though, as Janney's character is a damaged and aloof woman who has realized that the only way she can stop destroying others is by avoiding them altogether. Janney's just as excellent with this as she is a fearless killer (an excellence which will be a consistent refrain in basically any review of Lou ), carefully evincing a deep yearning to reach out before immediately squashing any vulnerability with quick cruelty.

There's practically nobody else in the film with enough dialogue to warrant being a character, other than Phillip. As the crazed, dangerous kidnapper, Logan Marshall-Green is given the impossible task of playing a narrative device. Marshall-Green, so great in 2015's The Invitation and the spectacular but underrated Upgrade , does his best with the woefully underwritten, generally baffling character, but it's a fight nobody could win. Phillip's motivations and actions make it seem like he's in an entirely different movie, disconnected from Lou the same way that all the other characters are. Even Lou is disconnected from Lou , but at least that makes sense.

Anna Foerster Directs Great Action for the Otherwise Middling Netflix Movie

Ludicrous and emotionally flat-lining as it may often be, Lou remains entertaining throughout thanks to Janney's committed performance and director Anna Foerster's action movie intelligence. Having directed great action sequences for the television shows Marvel's Jessica Jones and Westworld , and working on every explosion-filled Roland Emmerich movie except The Patriot , Foerster has developed an innate feel for the kinds of visuals Lou needs. Unfortunately, there are really only two or three scenes that unleash her potential, though they are exceptional.

Related: Netflix Original Movies Coming in September 2022

Between Janney, Foerster, and the fight choreographers , the three action sequences are the best part of Lou , outside Janney's brooding. Using rain, campfire, shadows, and other small elements to heighten each scene, the combat in this film is brutal and usually, surprisingly realistic. The organically clumsy nature of some fights lack John Woo/Wick grace but are brimming with bone-crushing, bloody authenticity. Janney is somehow entirely believable as a killing machine, a bit out of practice but extra dangerous because of her suicidal 'nothing to lose' mentality. Lou begins the film wanting to die, and the amount of pain and suffering she gives and gets just might grant Lou her wish.

The final set piece and fight scene, though pretty ridiculous, is also done very well, with tight editing and gorgeous cinematography. Just as the film begins with a nod to The Searchers , it ends with a direct reference to the famous battle on the beach at the end of Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island , a perfect film where two morally compromised characters are drawn toward an inevitable deadly duel. The fight stands out from the rest of the film, with the sound cutting out and the entire thing becoming genuinely operatic, taking those aforementioned themes of filial damage and cyclical violence to a poetic extreme.

Lou Should've Been About the Action

Lou is a film that wants to be a thriller but should've been a downright action movie. If Foerster was able to just let loose with Lou and create more great action sequences than these, it would have been a pretty wonderful film, one truly worthy of Janney's great performance.

Ultimately, Lou is just like its titular character — detached, damaged, and dark, but with enough sparks of brutality left in it to surprise. If only the film was more consistently intense, emotionally committed, and dramatically coherent. Then it'd be more like Janney than her character. From J.J. Abrams' production company Bad Robot, Lou is now streaming on Netflix .

Movie and TV Reviews
Allison Janney

Lou (2022) Netflix Movie Review – Not quite the female action movie it could have been

Not quite the female action movie that it could have been.

In recent years, Liam Neeson and Bob Odenkirk have proven to the world that action heroes don’t have to be young and muscular. There is room for the older generation too and in Lou , it’s time for Alison Janney to showcase her ability to kick ass in front of the camera.

She stars as the titular character, a retiree living in a forest cabin on an isolated island, who is hiding there for reasons that are initially kept hidden. As the movie begins, it becomes clear that she has no interest in remaining alive. After withdrawing all of her money from her bank account, she writes a letter to her neighbour Hannah (Jurnee Smollett) and then sits down with a shotgun placed beneath her chin. She obviously intends to kill herself but before she can pull the trigger, a panicked Hannah arrives at Lou’s home with a request for help.

Hannah’s daughter Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman) has been abducted by Phillip (Logan Marshall-Green), her abusive ex-husband, and she wants Lou to use her tracking skills to hunt him down. Lou agrees, not only because she has found a renewed purpose to live but because she has other reasons to help Hannah that don’t become clear until later in the movie.

Lou, with the help of her dog Jax, and Hannah, go off into the forest in search of Phillip and Vee, a task made difficult by the storm that has hit the island.

This first section of the movie is relatively exciting as the group fight for survival in their battle against the elements. Director Anna Foerster handles these nail-biting scenes well and evidences her future ability to direct a disaster movie in the vein of Twister and Hard Rain if she is ever called upon to do so.

After Lou and Hannah nearly lose their lives to the heavy rainfall and rising flood waters, they arrive at a cabin which is inhabited by two men who work for Phillip. While Hannah stays behind, Lou approaches the cabin and pretends to be a frail old woman who has lost her way. The men are initially suspicious of her but just as they let their guard down, Lou uses a pan of hot soup and the sharp end of a tin can to take them down. Watching Janney topple these heavies is a cathartic delight but sadly, this is where the fun stops.

As the movie progresses from the bloody encounter in the cabin, there is a distinct lack of action during the rest of the running time. Instead, we get a middle act that is bogged down with exposition about Lou’s secretive past and her connection to Phillip and Hannah. This does much to derail the movie as it then becomes a twisty thriller with domestic elements instead of the action-packed thrill-ride that it initially appeared to be. There is one further fight scene during the climax but this is diluted by the surprising (and invasive) plot turns that happened before.

There’s nothing wrong with a movie that throws up a few twists and turns of course, but in Lou , they come across as slightly implausible. With a stronger script and a fleshed-out backstory for Lou, it would have been easier to buy into the plotting of the movie. But as we are only given the basics about her character and her relationship to Hannah and Phillip, the story becomes a bit of a jumbled mess. Things never really improve, so while Janney is still fun to watch as the misanthropic retiree with a knack for throwing cutting remarks as well as bruising punches, the rest of the movie becomes a lot less interesting.

As such, Lou is something of a missed opportunity. The actors all give good performances but they are under-served by the complicated script. If this was simply a movie about a retiree kicking bad guy butt during a one-woman mission to rescue an abducted girl, it would have been a lot more fun. Janny certainly has what it takes to convince as an older action hero so it can be considered a massive shame that she wasn’t given many opportunities to focus on this side of her character.

It might be that a sequel rights this movie’s wrongs. The ending certainly sets itself up for a follow-on movie, so if it is ever given the green light, I hope the screenwriters give us the female equivalent of Taken that Lou initially appeared to be. It could even co-star Judi Dench as a malevolent villain and feature a climatic showdown with her and Lou pummeling one another into submission. That would be a good movie and far better than what we have been given here, which is a letdown for both Janney and the movie’s audience.

Feel free to check out more of our movie reviews here!

Verdict - 6.4/10 6.4/10

10 thoughts on “Lou (2022) Netflix Movie Review – Not quite the female action movie it could have been”

I thought Lou was an excellent movie. Great plot and acting. It showed a humanistic side of the hero Lou. Everything was believable. I look forward to the sequel hopefully when it comes out

This movie was great. Hannah was annoying but is realistically how a mother would act. Phillip being Lou’s son, I didn’t see that coming. Lou is great. She didn’t get away unharmed which is good. It reminded me of the movie Enough in a sense. I recommend it

Hannah’s character was irritating.

A better ending if mother and son had drowned rather than than the typical Hollywood ridiculous survival of the heroine.

I thought it was great. I dont need perfection in a movie just to be entertained and that I was. Janney was spectacular, as she is in everything she does.

I thought it was great. I dont need perfection in a movie just entertained and that I was. Janney was spectacular, as she is in everything she does.

Todd: An idiot, not a idiot.

I think Donna is a idiot

Yes, Phillips is dead for sure because gun fire from the copter was aimed at him and Lou had his son as a shield. Also Sheriff Rankin gets few papers from coroner to be signed by Hannah to get Phillips body released for burial. Lou is alive and was watching her family leave the island for Seattle. Obviously CIA was convinced that Lou was dead and may close the file.

I don’t care for kickass movies. I was disappointed by the boring-ness of this movie. Couldn’t buy into Janny’s character at all!

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Lou Simón Crime Thriller ‘9 Windows’ Lands at Gravitas Ventures

The all-virtual production and modern retelling of “Rear Window” secures North American distribution

Gravitas Ventures acquired U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to Lou Simon’s crime thriller, “9 Windows,” the indie distributor announced Friday.

The first-of-its-kind all-virtual production from producers Bryce DiCristofalo and Todd Slater of Brick Lane Entertainment is a modern day retelling of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 classic “Rear Window.”

“9 Windows” is the first ever feature-length, live action film shot entirely on an extended reality film stage. It stars Independent Spirit Award nominee Michael Forsythe (“Raising Arizona,” “The Waterdance”) and Michael Paré (“Streets of Fire,” “Eddie and the Cruisers”).

Gravitas is slated to release the film on digital and cable VOD on Oct. 15.

“Gravitas Ventures is excited to bring ‘9 Windows’ to North American audiences in October. This Hitchcockian thriller will be a perfect viewing for horror fans this Halloween season,” Mackenzie Maguire, Gravitas Ventures’ acquisition manager, said in a statement. “Technology has changed everything. We no longer have to look through our neighbors’ windows, because people are willing to share intimate details of their lives on the internet. Therein lies the true horror,” Simón added.

Read an official synopsis of the film below:

On the day of her graduation, Liza and her parents are driving to a restaurant to celebrate when a truck slams into their car. Eighteen months after the car accident, Liza is unable to walk and lives alone after her parents’ death. Feeling responsible, Liza spends her days trolling vloggers on a local website. Late one night, a new video is uploaded in which a man sets fire to a dog. She reports it to the police, but the police detective, Boyle, cannot be bothered with a misdemeanor. However, when videos start popping up showing the gruesome murders of humans, Boyle finally agrees to consult a retired FBI agent to help them track down the killer. As the murders continue, Liza figures out that the killer is copying the most gruesome serial killers of all time. She finds the killer’s reflection on the knife he used in the second murder and finds out the identity of the murderer. But now that she helped the police identify him, has she inadvertently become his next target?

The “9 Windows” distribution deal was brokered by Mackenzie Maquire on behalf of Gravitas Ventures and producer Slater on behalf of the filmmakers.

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Lou Parent Guide

The highlight of the film is allison janney. the downside is the graphic violence and excess profanity..

Netflix: When her daughter is kidnapped, a desperate mother turns to her neighbor with a mysterious past for help.

Release date September 23, 2022

Run Time: 107 minutes

Get Content Details

The guide to our grades, parent movie review by keith hawkes.

Living alone, except for her dog Jax, on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, Lou (Allison Janney) spends her time hunting (or poaching, depending on the season), and keeping an eye on her tenants. In a trailer on a far corner of her land are Hannah (Jurnee Smollett) and her young daughter, Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman), who moved there to escape Phillip (Logan Marshall-Green), Hannah’s extremely abusive ex-husband. Phillip was killed years ago, and Hannah is moving on. Lou has her own plans for moving on, until a terrible rainstorm hits the island, knocking out their power, and Vee is abducted, seemingly by Phillip, who apparently faked his death. Hannah turns to Lou for help and learns that Lou is good for more than just off-season hunting. In fact, Lou seems to have a frightening amount of experience in tracking, fighting, and killing. And though she doesn’t let on to Hannah, Lou has her own reasons for going after Vee’s kidnapper.

Set in the late1980s, Lou feels a little like some of the thrillers from the time. Neither the effects or the fights are particularly ambitious, and the script bounces between being tolerable and sounding a little more wooden than a log cabin. But as a throwback, that just adds to the charm. And by constraining its reach to well within its grasp, the movie manages to look decent – helped in no small part by the natural scenic beauty of the shooting locations in British Columbia.

I’m not saying this is the cinematic event of the century. It’s a bit better than your average in-flight movie, but it’s not going to blow your socks off or spearhead a new movement in modern cinema. It’s just a bit of fun – at least, for adult genre fans. Family audiences are not going to have the time of their lives with the brutal violence, which includes characters getting shot, stabbed, beaten, having their eyes gouged out, and being scalded with boiling soup. If that leaves you and your teens undeterred, you might think twice about the two-dozen-plus f-bombs scattered throughout the runtime like a minefield of profanity. But adults, especially fans of older thrillers, might just have a good time – if you can chew through some of the 2x4s the writers put in as dialogue.

About author

Keith hawkes, lou rating & content info.

Why is Lou rated R? Lou is rated R by the MPAA for violence and language.

Violence: Characters are seen hunting and butchering deer for food. A character is seen preparing for an attempted suicide. Photographs of hanging corpses are visible. Dead bodies are seen. Characters are shot, bludgeoned, stabbed, and injured in accidents. One man’s eye is gouged out in a fight. There are references to domestic abuse, and scars from the abuse are seen. A person is seen fixing a dislocated shoulder after a fall. Sexual Content: None. Profanity: There are 29 sexual expletives, 32 scatological curses, frequent uses of terms of deity and occasional mild swear words. Alcohol / Drug Use: An adult character is briefly seen drinking alcohol.

Page last updated January 12, 2024

Lou Parents' Guide

The film frequently references the CIA’s involvement in destabilizing other nations governments. Which examples does the film provide? Which other nations has the CIA been involved with destabilizing? To what end? How is this behaviour permitted legally and politically in the United States? What have some of the knock-on consequences been of these regime changes? How have they gone on to hurt the United States and its allies?

‘Soulless Individual’: Maryland Serial Killer Blames Murders on His Alternate Female Personality

By Kalia Richardson

Kalia Richardson

Lou Luciano, a former Baltimore-based FBI agent, knows his way around murder-for-hire cases, armored car robberies, kidnappings, and homicides. But serial killer Hadden Clark’s case was different: Clark hung meat from his cell ceiling, drew coloring-book-like caricatures of his victims, and believed his white-bearded cellmate was Jesus.

“You’re dealing with multiple personalities, a guy eating moldy pork patties,” Luciano tells Rolling Stone. “He’s a killer. He’s a soulless individual. Behind those eyes, there is nothing. And he was the guy holding the cards because he had a pretty good idea where the bodies were.”

“There’d be times where we spend seven, eight, nine, hours with him, and he’s talking all about his alter egos,” Luciano says. “He’s showing us his drawings. He’s talking about people that he killed. He’s given information up. Some of it we could corroborate and knew about, some of it he was playing us.”

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In the first episode of the docuseries, viewers meet Truitt, Clark’s cellmate who served a 50-year sentence for murder. Clark believed the long-haired, bearded Truitt to be Jesus and confessed to him where Dorr was buried. Dorr, dressed in a pink and white polka-dot bathing suit, was last seen in 1986 walking to an inflatable pool in her father’s backyard, the docuseries reports. Luciano began conducting lengthy interrogations with Clark at the Western Correctional Institute in the late Nineties, he says and was among the detectives in search of Dorr’s body. More than a decade later, detectives (with the help of Truitt and Clark) identified Dorr’s bathing suit and remains in a wooded area near a playground.

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“If you’re comfortable with this guy living in your basement or renting a room from you, then put him out on parole,” Luciano says.

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‘Finally’ Review: Claude Lelouch’s Bizarre Male-Crisis Comedy Feels Like a Farewell

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Successful in his career and married to Léa (Elsa Zylberstein, in a thankless role), a famous and much younger actress, Lino Jr. seems an unlikely candidate to drop everything and head off alone on a walking journey across France. This impulsive decision, it turns out, is the result of a mysterious movie-science brain condition that suddenly prevents the successful defense attorney from lying — an affliction that has messy consequences for his job and his marriage.

There’s a more serious neurological disorder at work here too, as we learn in the course of his episodic, golden-lit trek, which sees him bonding with various salt-of-the-earth folks along the way — notably a neglected, piano-playing farm wife (Françoise Gillard), who responds eagerly to his leading suggestion that she watch “The Bridges of Madison County.” Another subplot, rather abruptly shoehorned into proceedings, revolves around another “Money Money Money” descendant: Lino’s half-sister Sandrine (Sandrine Bonnaire), the daughter of an activist for sex workers’ rights (played by Nicole Courcel in the 1972 film), who has continued fighting her mother’s cause in the present day.

It’s a development that sits oddly amid all the film’s surrounding frippery, as do some haphazard Second World War flashbacks — set particularly oddly to a busy, jaunty jazz score by celebrated trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf that may represent the film’s chief asset to non-aficionados of its director. More complementary to the film’s musical design is Lino’s passion for trumpet-playing, picked up along the way on his journey. This unfortunately enables multiple reprises of a grievously whimsical ballad of the romance between a horn and a piano, but does at least give us a memorably odd scene of our hero riffing away on his instrument at Le Mans on race day, as cars screech and zoom below.

In what increasingly feels like a stream-of-consciousness exercise, editor Stéphane Mazalaigue embraces blunt transitions and tonal swerves, though the film doesn’t seem entirely in command of its incoherence. Maxine Heraud’s digital lensing alternates between heavily filtered stylization and a somewhat harsh candid aesthetic, but never quite channels the romanticism of vintage Lelouch — not as much, at least, as the catchy, oft-repeated title song, most affectingly performed by Merad and Eurovision star Barbara Pravi (playing Lino’s daughter) at the long-brewing emotional climax of this cluttered, often baffling film. “Life chases us, embraces us, replaces us,” they sing tremulously: “Finally” does all three in any given scene.

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition), Sept. 1, 2024. Running time: 128 MIN. (Original title: "Finalement")

Production: (France) A Les Films 13, France 2 Cinéma, Laurent Dassault Rond-Point production with the support of Canal+ and the participation of CINÉ+, France Télévisions. (World sales: Studiocanal, Paris.)
Crew: Director: Claude Lelouch. Screenplay: Lelouch, Pierre Leroux, Grégoire Lacroix, Valérie Perrin. Camera: Maxine Heraud. Editor: Stéphane Mazalaigue. Music: Ibrahim Maalouf.
With: Kad Merad, Elsa Zylberstain, Michel Boujenah, Sandrine Bonnaire, Barbara Pravi, Françoise Gillard. (French dialogue)

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COMMENTS

Lou movie review & film summary (2022)
Lou movie review & film summary (2022)
Lou
Lou
'Lou' Review: Unfinished Business
Sept. 22, 2022. Lou. Directed by Anna Foerster. Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller. R. 1h 47m. Find Tickets. When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we ...
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Lou - Movie Reviews
Lou Review: Compelling Thriller Boasts Transformative Allison Janney
Lou is a thriller directed by Anna Foerster, starring Allison Janney as Lou, a reclusive woman forced out of her isolated existence when a desperate mother seeks her help to find her abducted daughter. Jurnee Smollett co-stars as the frantic mother, and the film explores themes of resilience and the inherent strength of its characters. The film ...
Lou Review
Lou is a tight, gripping thriller that opens up a whole new genre for the ever-fabulous Allison Janney. Working off a smart script from Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley, director Anna Foerster proves ...
Lou (2022)
Permalink. 8/10. Successful survival film with its own identity. norbert-plan-618-715813 4 December 2022. Lou is a film that makes you feel the cold and wet! This survival movie maintains and renews the genre at the same time. The humidity and the cold, because the film takes place during a storm in the forest.
Lou
Rated 2.5/5 Stars • Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Audience Member In parts charming, nuanced and internal, Lou is a film for contemplative viewing.
Lou
Thinking she'd put her dangerous past behind her, Lou (Allison Janney) finds her quiet life interrupted when a desperate mother (Jurnee Smollett) begs her to save her kidnapped daughter. As a massive storm rages, the two women risk their lives on a rescue mission that will test their limits and expose dark and shocking secrets from their pasts.
Lou Review: A Well-Trod Action-Thriller That Neither Flies Nor ...
There are smart choices here and characters with potential, but in the end, it's an action-thriller that's too thin to be anything other than "decent." /Film Rating: 6 out of 10. Lou is a simple ...
Lou (2022 film)
Lou (2022 film)
Movie Review
Lou, 2022. Directed by Anna Foerster. Starring Allison Janney, Jurnee Smollett, Logan Marshall-Green, Ridley Asha Bateman, Greyston Holt, Matt Craven, Toby Levins, Marci T. House, and Jaycie Dotin ...
Reviews: Alison Janney's action chops in Netflix's 'Lou'
Review: Alison Janney grows taciturn in the thriller 'Lou,' plus more movies to watch at home Allison Janney, left, and Jurnee Smollett in the movie "Lou." (Liane Hentscher/Netflix)
Lou (2022): Netflix Movie Review & Ending Explained
Lou (2022) Movie Review: Anna Foerster Has The Right Ingredients For A Solid Geriatric Actioner, But She Uses The Wrong Recipe. Directed by Anna Foerster and written by Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley, Lou follows the titular character, played by Allison Janney, who lives in a remote cabin with her dog Jax (Ozzie and Jersey).
'Lou (2022)' Movie Netflix Review: Stream It or Skip It?
The Gist: Lou (Janney) looks like she's really seen some shit. Probably done some shit, too. She's mostly expressionless as she hunts a deer, puts a bullet in a deer, butchers a deer, burns ...
In Lou , Allison Janney is a tight-lipped, tough-as-nails action heroine
Lou | Official Trailer | Netflix. In Janney's capable hands, our heroine is fully fleshed out, yet lean with more gristle on the bone than meat. She delivers zingy one-liners as well as she does ...
Lou Review: Allison Janney Deserves a Better Taken Rip-Off
Lou Review: Allison Janney Deserves a Better Taken Rip-Off
'Lou' review: Allison Janney tough as nails in survivalist action pic
Directed by Anna Foerster ("Underworld: Blood Wars"), "Lou" plays like an '80s action thriller, with Janney in a brooding role that might have then been played by tough dudes Schwarzenegger or ...
Lou Review
Lou is an unexpected action movie with an even more unexpected lead role from Oscar-winning actress Allison Janney who earns a spot alongside Keanu Reeves, Charlize Theron, Bob Odenkirk, and Joey ...
Lou Movie Review
Our review: Parents say: Not yet rated Rate movie. Kids say: Not yet rated Rate movie. This thriller is all about mood, and it's successful in building suspense through enigmatic characters, gory action, eerie music, and a rainy wooded setting. We're introduced to title character Lou from low angles and often within frames, making the ...
Lou Review: Allison Janney Gets Brutal in New Netflix Thriller
Netflix Original Movies Coming in September 2022. Between Janney, Foerster, and the fight choreographers, the three action sequences are the best part of Lou, outside Janney's brooding. Using rain ...
Lou (2022) Netflix Movie Review
Verdict - 6.4/10. 6.4/10. In recent years, Liam Neeson and Bob Odenkirk have proven to the world that action heroes don't have to be young and muscular. There is room for the older generation too and in Lou, it's time for Alison Janney to showcase her ability to kick ass in front of the camera.
Lou Simón Crime Thriller '9 Windows' Lands at Gravitas Ventures
Gravitas Ventures acquired U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to Lou Simon's crime thriller, "9 Windows," the indie distributor announced Friday.
Werewolves (2024)
Werewolves: Directed by Steven C. Miller. With Frank Grillo, Lou Diamond Phillips, Katrina Law, Ilfenesh Hadera. Two scientists try to stop a mutation that turns people into werewolves after being touched by a super-moon the year before.
Simu Liu Reviews Marvel's Shang-Chi Movie 3 Years After Its ...
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu reviews his MCU debut movie with a cheeky jab at a certain Marvel character. Phase 4 introduced several heroes as potential new members of ...
Lou Movie Review for Parents
Lou. Parent Guide. The highlight of the film is Allison Janney. The downside is the graphic violence and excess profanity. Overall C-. Netflix: When her daughter is kidnapped, a desperate mother turns to her neighbor with a mysterious past for help. Release date September 23, 2022. Violence D. Sexual Content A.
Maryland Serial Killer Hadden Clark Explored in 'Born Evil' Docuseries
Lou Luciano, a former Baltimore-based FBI agent, knows his way around murder-for-hire cases, armored car robberies, kidnappings, and homicides. But serial killer Hadden Clark's case was ...
'Finally' Review: Claude Lelouch's Bizarre Male-Crisis Comedy
The veteran director falls some way short of his glory days in this muddled, sentimental tale of a lawyer grappling with mortality and truth, but his devotees will find much to chew on. Five years ...

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Lou Review: A Well-Trod Action-Thriller That Neither Flies Nor Fails

Strong performances in archetypal characters

A palatable but too-streamlined action-thriller

Movie Review – Lou (2022)

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In Lou , Allison Janney is a tight-lipped, tough-as-nails action heroine