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Prime Day is here again, but the best value on Amazon is its Prime Video streaming service.
For a reasonable price, you can stream some of Hollywood’s biggest hits from the past and present.
The streamer just added several compelling titles in June, with the effective horror film, Escape Room, at the top of our binge-watch list.
Watch With Us also recommends checking out the little-seen ‘90s action thriller The Jackal, starring Bruce Willis and Richard Gere, and the Oscar-winning ‘60s musical West Side Story.
‘The Jackal’ (1997)
The international hitman known only as The Jackal (Bruce Willis) is the best there is at what he does. When the FBI gets a tip that he’s been hired to assassinate an unidentified prominent American, they need to act fast before the Jackal strikes. In desperation, they turn to imprisoned ex-IRA sniper Declan Mulqueen (Richard Gere), who claims to know the Jackal – and how to take him out. Declan will help the FBI get their man in exchange for his freedom, but the Jackal has no intention of getting caught, and he’ll take down Declan and anyone else who gets in his way.
A Hollywood remake of the classic 1973 thriller The Day of the Jackal, The Jackal is less political than its predecessor and places more emphasis on the action. The result is a pretty basic movie that involves one man chasing another for the majority of the picture. It works, though, because Willis is scary-good as the elusive titular henchman, and the classic supporting cast, which includes Oscar winners Sidney Poitier and J.K. Simmons, gives the film a dramatic heft it would otherwise lack. If you can get past the casting of the suave American Gere as a rough-and-ready Irish (!) criminal, you’ll enjoy The Jackal for all of its simple charms.
The Jackal is streaming on Prime Video.
‘Escape Room’ (2019)
Six Chicago strangers are brought together to play a mysterious game: if they manage to escape a variety of differently themed escape rooms, they’ll receive $10,000. That’s an offer too tempting to pass up, so they all eagerly accept the challenge. But what they don’t know before starting the game is that if they fail, they’ll die. And to make matters worse, these escape rooms are designed so that no one can solve them – or escape with their lives intact.
Fans of the Saw franchise will find much to enjoy about Escape Room, which places its protagonists in similarly elaborate scenarios that almost always ends with a gruesome death. Escape Room isn’t anything more or less than a horror movie designed to confuse you and make you gag. But it is effective, and the various deadly escape rooms, including an upside-down billiards hall room that would’ve made M.C. Escher proud, are intriguing to look at. The film spawned a sequel, 2021’s Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, but it just repeats the first film to lesser effect.
Escape Room is streaming on Prime Video.
‘West Side Story’ (1961)
Some classics never go out of style, and West Side Story is one of them. The 1961 movie musical, based on the legendary 1957 Broadway show, was remade by Steven Spielberg in 2021, but it doesn’t surpass the original. Then again, has any movie?
If you’ve read William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, you probably know the story: a boy and a girl from rival camps fall in love, and tragedy results. In this iteration, the boy, Tony (Richard Beymer), is a reluctant member of the all-white gang, the Jets, while the girl, Maria (Natalie Wood), has friends and family belonging to the Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks. None of them likes the idea of Tony and Maria getting together, and they’ll do anything to tear the two lovers apart.
That “anything” includes singing and dancing, and if you think the idea of gang warfare being staged as a musical is ridiculous, well, you need to see some more Broadway shows. Some classic Hollywood musicals like My Fair Lady can feel too stagey and wooden, but this West Side Story feels vital and alive. Codirector Jerome Robbins handled most of the dance sequences, and they look and feel more modern than the ‘21 remake. With such legendary songs as “Tonight” and “Somewhere” on the soundtrack, West Side Story will get your feet moving and your vocal cords humming. It’s one of the very few old musicals that can be considered timeless and just as relevant today as it was all those decades ago.
West Side Story is streaming on Prime Video.
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