Two ’80s classics, an acclaimed literary adaptation, a thoughtful drama and a delightfully amoral action flick are among the most noteworthy titles departing Netflix in the United States in August. Stream them while you can. (Dates indicate the first day titles are unavailable and are subject to change.)
‘48 HRS’ (Aug. 1)
Eddie Murphy was an up-and-coming stand-up and “Saturday Night Live” performer when the director Walter Hill paired him with Nick Nolte for this rough-and-tumble action hit from 1982 that set the template for the “buddy comedies” that dominated ’80s and ’90s cinema. Nolte is a rough-edged San Francisco police detective whose investigation of two escaped convicts leads him to Murphy’s incarcerated thief; the cop springs him from jail for the titular two days to help him track down the bad guys. Hill’s signature bruising action is especially electric, but Murphy’s streetwise, wisecracking persona steals the show — particularly in an uproarious scene in a county and western bar, in which you watch Murphy turning into a movie star before your very eyes.
‘Atonement’ (Aug. 1)
After the resounding success of his terrific adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” — amazingly, his feature debut — the British filmmaker Joe Wright took a crack at a much more recent literary classic. Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel, “Atonement,” tells its story in three periods (before World War II, in the midst of its bloodshed and decades later), tracing how a young woman’s lie disrupts several lives, and hers besides. James McAvoy and Wright’s frequent collaborator Keira Knightley are swoon-worthy as the romantic leads, but the breakout performer here is Saoirse Ronan, whose nuanced work in the central role was a fine indication of the brilliant performer she would become.
‘Splash’ (Aug. 1)
Ron Howard followed up the sleeper hit “Night Shift” and solidified his transition from acting to directing with this smash 1984 comedy, which also became the breakthrough picture for Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. Hanks stars in this (literal) fish-out-of-water story as a lovelorn New Yorker who meets the girl of his dreams (Hannah) — only to discover that she’s a mermaid. Hanks and Hannah generate considerable chemistry and rooting interest as the romantic leads, but two “SCTV” vets steal the show: Eugene Levy, as a mad scientist who knows the truth about the mermaid, and John Candy, as Hanks’s freewheeling bachelor brother whose game of hung over racquetball is a comedy classic.
‘Copshop’ (Aug. 10)
This scuzzy 2021 action thriller plays like a 21st-century riff on the John Carpenter classic “Assault on Precinct 13,” similarly confining its action to a middle-of-nowhere police station and to characters of varying shades of gray. The primary conflict is between the fixer Teddy Murretto (Frank Grillo), on the run from the mob, and the hired killer Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler), who fakes a drunken-driving arrest so he can follow Teddy into the can and kill him. But things get considerably more complicated from there. The screenplay, which the director Joe Carnahan co-wrote with Kurt McLeod (from a story by McLeod and Mark Williams), works up a series of ingenious twists and reversals, and Carnahan executes the mayhem with vigorous brio. The matchup of Butler and Grillo (who are also among the producers) make this something of a “Heat” for aficionados of dirtbag cinema, though Toby Huss turns in the most memorable performance with his mid-film appearance as a flamboyant assassin.
‘Boy Erased’ (Aug. 16)
Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe credibly shed their movie-star personas and immerse themselves in the difficult roles of Arkansas parents who try to reconcile their Christian faith with the coming-out of their son, Jared (Lucas Hedges), by placing him in a conversion therapy. Adapting the Garrard Conley memoir, Joel Edgerton wrote the script, directed and also co-stars as Mr. Sykes, the director of the “Love in Action” program, where the faith-based approach gives way quickly to humiliation and abuse. He is an easy villain, but “Boy Erased” resists the urge to paint in black and white, instead investing its characters with a wide spectrum of motivations and intentions.
ALSO LEAVING: “American Gangster,” “Amy,” “The Best Man Holiday,” “Borat,” “Chef,” “Enough,” “Everest,” “Ex Machina,” “Father of the Bride,” “Fletch,” “The Five-Year Engagement,” “Fried Green Tomatoes,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Home Improvement” Seasons 1-8, “Kindergarten Cop,” “Locke,” “Lucy,” “Meet the Parents,” “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” “Mississippi Grind,” “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” “Pretty Woman,” “The Proposal,” “Single White Female,” “Smokey and the Bandit,” “There’s Something About Mary,” “Tootsie,” “Triple 9” (Aug. 1); “Spider-Man,” “Spider-Man 2,” “Spider-Man 3” (Aug. 5); “Labyrinth” (Aug. 7); “Colossal” (Aug. 9); “Free Fire” (Aug. 10); “Dark Places,” “The Game” Seasons 1-3 (Aug. 15); “Crane World,” “Fall” (Aug. 18); “Life After Beth” (Aug. 19).
The post Stream These 5 Movies Before They Leave Netflix in August appeared first on New York Times.
