Riz Ahmed is Ruben, a metal drummer whose hearing is rapidly deteriorating to oblivion in “Sound of Metal.” He happens to be dating Lou (Olivia Cooke) the singer of their metal duo band Blackgammon. When Ruben’s hearing starts to go and, eventually, in horrifyingly authentic ways, disappears, Lou becomes the voice of judgment, but only as his girlfriend.
Read moreNot even Joaquin Phoenix Can Save Languidly-Delivered “The Sisters Brothers”
You can usually count on director Jacques Audiard to deliver the goods and, more times than not, he does. I was rather taken by his last four films, (in order of preference, "A Prophet," "Rust and Bone," “The Beat My Heart Skipped," and "Dheepan") all dealing with the dark corners of male masculinity. That's why his latest, "The Sisters Brothers," a grimy, gunky Western filled with absurdist nihilism, suffers from being so, well, un-Audiard-esque.
Set in 1851, the film deals with brothers and assassins Charlie and Eli Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly play the Cowboys), as it languishes its Northwestern setting, deep through the mountains of Oregon, right into a dangerous brothel in the small town of Mayfield, and ending in the gold rush-set landscape of California. Paralleling their story are Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed's lone drifters, them too set on striking it rich in California.