If you want to watch films about real-life World War II heroes or disaffected adults who commit adultery, Netflix is the streamer to subscribe to in September.
Watch With Us are obviously huge fans of the streamer, and that’s partially due to the platform adding different films that cater to different tastes.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare should satisfy action lovers and fans of macho shows like Reacher, while We Don’t Live Here Anymore will appeal to subscribers who enjoyed The Invite with Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen this past summer.
‘We Don’t Live Here Anymore’ (2004)
Jack (Mark Ruffalo) and Terry (Laura Dern) are a married couple who share almost everything with their mutual couple friends, Hank (Peter Krause) and Edith (Naomi Watts). That includes their spouses, as Jack is secretly having an affair with Edith. Terry suspects something’s up, but doesn’t have solid proof and Jack vehemently denies it when she brings it up. But Terry is determined to find out what’s really going on between her husband and her best friend, and she’ll do anything to find out the truth – even if it means destroying both marriages to do so.
We Don’t Live Here Anymore is a lot like this summer’s indie hit The Invite, which also involved two married couples slowly revealing their innermost secrets. Where Anymore differs is that it’s not a comedy at all — it takes the subject of infidelity seriously and really focuses on how a marriage like Jack and Terry’s is supported by the fragile lies they tell one another — and themselves. All four leads are terrific, but Dern stands out as the increasingly embittered wife who hates the fact that she thinks everyone is lying to her.
We Don’t Live Here Anymore is streaming on Netflix.
‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ (2024)
Henry Cavill might have been great casting when he donned Superman’s cape and tights in Man of Steel, but he’s even better as Gus March-Phillipps, a real-life war hero who led a covert mission to destroy an Italian supply ship near a Spanish-controlled island. Gus can’t do it alone, so he assembles a dirty half-dozen of rogue officers like Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza Gonzalez) to help him.
Like WWII classics The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is best when it concentrates on how its unusual team works together for a common cause — to kill some evil Nazis and win the war. Fortunately, director Guy Ritchie knows this and devotes most of his film to letting Cavill, Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Babs Olusanmokun, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Henry Golding and Til Schweiger crack some skulls and trade witty quips. Is the film faithful to the real event and people it’s based on? Not really, but when a film is this fun, it doesn’t really matter.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is streaming on Netflix.
‘Disconnect’ (2012)
Reporter Nina (Andrea Riseborough) has a hot scoop — she’s convinced an underage chatroom stripper, Kyle (Max Thieriot), to help expose the seedy side of online escort services and pornography. In another part of town, a couple of teenage boys pose as a girl to get their classmate, Ben (Jonah Bobo), to send them a nude photo of himself, which they distribute to their peers. The resulting embarrassment prompts Ben to attempt suicide by hanging himself, causing him to fall into a coma. Meanwhile, Cindy (Paula Patton) and Derek (Alexander Skarsgård) discover their identities have been stolen online and hire a private investigator to find the man responsible.
What do all of these stories have in common? The title says it all — all of these characters are disconnected from each other because of social media, which allows them to escape from the problems they don’t really want to face — or know how to solve. There’s something Crash-like about Disconnect, and it can’t avoid feeling preachy at times, but it’s a fascinating portrait of a group of people who rely too much on technology to communicate. The ensemble cast is impressive, and the compelling story doesn’t give any false resolutions to any of its stories that undermine its overarching message.
Disconnect is streaming on Netflix.
