movie reviews zeros and ones

Zeros and Ones

The late aughts have been a particularly fecund period for the American maverick director Abel Ferrara . From 2019 to now he’s cooked up three fiction features and two documentaries (one about him presenting one of the fictional features, “Siberia,” in Berlin).

It hasn’t been entirely a matter of him having a lot to say. Frankly, while it wouldn’t be fair to state that the three fiction features, “ Tommaso ,” “Siberia,” and “Zeros and Ones” all say the same thing, it is, I think, accurate to call them variations on a theme. The theme being what exactly is going on in the heart and mind of Abel Ferrara.

“Tommaso” was a half-pastoral, half-tormented portrait of a sober American artist living in Italy, which is what Ferrara himself is. “Siberia” was a deep dive into isolation and nightmares—the title location is a bar run by the lead character. Played, as the title character in “Tommaso” was, by Willem Dafoe .

“Zeros and Ones” returns to Italy. Indeed, its narrative hinges on one of the most famous and sacrosanct places there. This movie, too, features a man in emotional isolation, played now by Ethan Hawke instead of Dafoe. In a sense, this is Ferrara’s pandemic quarantine movie. His “response” is not like any you’ve seen before.

It begins with a preface by Hawke as himself, talking about the picture you’re about to see. It’s an awkward, earnest, weird pitch (as we’ll learn at the end of the movie, when Hawke addresses us again, that it actually was a pitch, for crowd-funding). But it’s the most grounded the movie is going to be in a while.

Shot digitally by Sean Price Williams as if he was in a competition called “How Little Light Do YOU Need To Get An Exposure,” “Zeros and Ones” spends a good chunk of time following Hawke’s character, a military man named JJ who’s stationed in Italy, as he wanders about, doing things that guys in Abel Ferrara movies tend to do. That is, being dwarfed in expansive surroundings (a deserted train station), visiting and having an enigmatic conversation with a woman, having a less enigmatic conversation with a child, going to a seedy locale and procuring narcotics there, and so on. He also has fraught digital exchanges with indie film person Stephen Gurewitz—playing himself I guess because there’s his name above his head on the laptop screen—and records some ostensibly documentary video. “Shoot it so they believe it,” a superior officer tells him. At some point an Italian woman asks him what he’s doing “in my country.”

Before we are able to piece all this together, we hear pronouncements like “Jesus was just another soldier, another war casualty,” and then the question “But on whose side?” We also learn that JJ has a twin brother who’s being detained and tortured back in the USA. In connection with a supposed terrorist plot. Playing the brother, Hawke channels Dafoe at his most crazed, and yells things like “You can’t kill me,” “This machine kills fascists,” and “How come no one is lighting themselves on fire anymore?”

And we haven’t even gotten to the bombing of the Vatican yet. (Is that a spoiler?) As described, all of this seems rather on-the-nose—dumb even. The twin-brother bit is a really hoary way of signaling duality, and the philosophical would-be adages bandied about make Dostoevsky seem as dry as William F. Buckley.

But Ferrara’s filmmaking always has a blunt elemental force and conviction. It doesn’t quite transcend the commonplace aspect of what he’s trying to “say.” And yet transcending isn’t the point— doing is. This is not just guerrilla filmmaking, it’s a kind of action painting. A literal journey to the end of the night.

Now playing in select theaters and available on digital platforms.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Ethan Hawke as JJ
Cristina Chiriac as
Phil Neilson as
Anna Ferrara as
Salvatore Ruocco as
Valerio Mastandrea as
Babak Karimi as
Abel Ferrara
Leonardo Daniel Bianchi

Cinematographer

Sean Price Williams

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‘Zeros and Ones’ Review: Plague and Paranoia

Abel Ferrara’s lockdown experiment is a spooky political thriller with a double dose of Ethan Hawke.

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In a scene from the film “Zeros and Ones,” a man sits in a place of worship in front of candles.

By Jeannette Catsoulis

Cryptic to a fault, Abel Ferrara’s “Zeros and Ones” unfolds in a murkiness that’s both literal and ideological. Even its star, Ethan Hawke — speaking to us as himself in two brief scenes that bookend the movie — admits that, initially, he didn’t understand Ferrara’s script. His candor is comforting, and emboldening, encouraging persistence with a story whose destination seems as vague as its characters’ motivations.

What’s clear is that the constraints of pandemic filmmaking were catnip to Ferrara, whose jittery camera patrols the deserted nighttime streets of a locked-down Rome alongside J.J. (Hawke), an elite American soldier on a mysterious undercover mission. This requires finding his twin brother, Justin (also Hawke), an imprisoned revolutionary whom we see being questioned and repeatedly tortured.

Surveilled by shady foreign agents, J.J. creeps from one furtive encounter to another, constantly filming his progress. Pitiless, grainy close-ups capture him sipping tea with a mother and child — perhaps his brother’s family — in a blank apartment and, later, alongside a mullah in a mosque. A terrorist attack on the city may be imminent, but J.J. is otherwise engaged with a couple of slinky prostitutes (“They’re both negative,” their madam helpfully advertises) and a beautiful Russian woman (played by the director’s partner, Cristina Chiriac) who’s forcing him to have sex at gunpoint. By this juncture, the only thing we know for sure is that Ferrara, bless his guttersnipe soul, is still bracingly, adamantly himself.

Steadfastly shouldering this rambling, barely penetrable narrative, Hawke smoothly distinguishes the implacable intensity of J.J. from the delusions of his brother (whose messianic rantings recall Hawke’s startling performance as John Brown in last year’s Showtime drama “The Good Lord Bird.” ) Saddled with some of the film’s dippiest dialogue (“You hate trees!,” he screams at his unidentified tormentors), Justin serves as the enfeebled, despairing conscience of a world seemingly abandoned by God and compassion alike.

With its prickling, apocalyptic aesthetic and persistent paranoia, this spooky political thriller is all about a mood: conspiratorial, sinister, unsettled. Here, the accessories of pandemic life become even more ominous: A sanitizing team on the subway recalls plague thrillers like “Contagion” (2011) , and a suddenly-brandished thermometer pointed at J.J.’s forehead plays like a gun attack. When everyone is wearing a mask, how do we tell the good guys from the bad?

Utterly baffling, yet never less than intriguing, “Zeros and Ones” lingers in the mind. Even after you think you’ve brushed it off, its chilly tendrils continue to cling.

Zeros and Ones Rated R for temptation and torture. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Amazon , Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.

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Zeros and Ones Reviews

An atmospheric but disjointed no-budget thriller. The war thriller is pretty underwhelming fare, but its mere existence attests to the tenacity of its creator.

Full Review | Nov 9, 2023

Though ideas abound in the film, they lack a connective tissue... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 24, 2023

Zeros and Ones is difficult to decipher; the film's narrative logic seems to emerge from the music that remains constant from beginning to end. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 5, 2023

Zeros and Ones isn't just solemn; it is also pompous and vapid. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 21, 2022

A pretentious piece of art made by people so in love with their own obfuscation and so convinced of their own genius that they don't care about the audience. That's not thrilling or audacious; it's tedious.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | May 10, 2022

In the conventional terms its poster invites, you couldn’t say it’s good. It’s a film of shadows, elisions and interstices, to be watched in the deep dark.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 6, 2022

a prickly, difficult, even impenetrable mash-up of archetypes and ideas, all wrapped up in the nonsensical intrigues of genre cinema while reaching outward towards something bigger beyond.

Full Review | Apr 4, 2022

It’s minor work – but there is always something there, some restless wounded intelligence, a pugnacious worrying-away at something.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 2, 2022

Zeros and Ones is a film unlikely to attract new fans. Often dimly lit, and with what appears to be a script under constant development, not everything works.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 12, 2022

The film is an incomprehensible mess.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Feb 8, 2022

Zeros and Ones is one dark movie. I don't mean morally dark, or emotionally dark, though it may well be those things too. But it's easily one of the literally darkest films to hit screens since Vin Diesel starred in Pitch Black way back in 2000.

Full Review | Original Score: 0/5 | Jan 21, 2022

An arthouse thriller of a sort, it isn't concerned with the niceties of story or characters. It's a kinetic exercise in abstruseness, one that conjures up a feeling of unease but little else.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jan 20, 2022

Ethan Hawke's dual role as twin brothers almost salvages director Ferrara's head-scratching thriller. Almost.

Full Review | Jan 17, 2022

Featuring Ethan Hawke in a dual role as twin brothers on opposite sides of a brewing war, Abel Ferrara's new film evokes the paranoia of modern information overload.

Full Review | Jan 4, 2022

How did Ethan Hawke ever get mixed up in this mess of a film. You know less when it ends than you did when it started.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Dec 20, 2021

The funny thing is that both the detractors and the defenders of the film will use the same argument: that no one understands its plot. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 14, 2021

Abel Ferrara in his purest form. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Dec 6, 2021

The dull and incoherent drama Zeros and Ones is an example of how writer/director Abel Ferrara continues to bury himself so self-indulgently in his garbage films that he dumps out, he no longer seems capable of detecting his own cinematic stink.

Neither wholly coherent nor particularly compelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Dec 3, 2021

Deliberately inscrutable covid-era thriller. Not the easiest watch but typically interesting as an Abel Ferrara movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 26, 2021

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‘Zeros and Ones’ Review: Abel Ferrara’s Murky Pandemic-Era Mind Game

By Jay Weissberg

Jay Weissberg

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The pandemic has slowed some of us down, but Abel Ferrara isn’t a guy to let an opportunity go to waste, even if it’s not clear what he’s actually doing with it. After his COVID-era documentary self-portrait “Sportin’ Life” last September comes “ Zeros and Ones ,” a murky — in every sense — apocalyptic spy thriller shot at night during the strict lockdown in his adopted city of Rome. Starring Ethan Hawke in dual roles as a military man of uncertain allegiance and his revolutionist brother, the film will have viewers grasping for Ferraraesque judgments on the politics of pandemic protocols, though the director’s own statements clearly place him among the sane.

His acolytes know best not to struggle too hard to parse a story that’s designed more as sensory mind play than straightforward (or even meandering) narrative. St. Peter’s Basilica gets blown up, but this is hardly “Angels and Demons.” Ethan Hawke provides an explanation of sorts in prologue and epilogue speaking directly to camera, but that too is surely making a game of our expectations rather than a genuine assist to the audience (more about that later).

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What “Zeros and Ones” does do — deliberately, calculatedly, in the kind of messy intuitive manner that’s been the director’s signature of late — is reproduce the general state of unease and insecurity that’s plagued most of us during lockdown, when deserted nighttime city streets are even more unsettling than in a noir film and paranoia about who gains from exploiting these empty mental and physical spaces generates troubling reflections. Ferrara won’t be expanding his fan base, but its hunger should be temporarily sated.

Popular on Variety

The film’s intense soundscape, full of the kinds of cranked-up trebles and basses that make your guts rumble, creates an aural framework more unifying than the deliberately disorienting narrative with its teasing glimpses of plot visually matched by dimly-lit scenes shot in claustrophobic close-up. The period is full pandemic, with masks and hand washing clearly in evidence, but it’s like an alternate present in which a shadowy military force controls the empty streets and only the Chinese underworld and glitzy Russian overlords operate outside prescribed spaces. It’s here that JJ (Hawke) searches for news of his imprisoned brother Justin, questioning his sister-in-law Valeria (Valeria Correale) before connecting with sinister Chinese criminals who tempt him with girl-on-girl action and mounds of cocaine.

The Chinese element is a major misstep, smacking of hoary stereotypes of opium dens where Caucasians are lured by drugs and lesbian sex. It’s a clichéd netherworld existing just below the surface of “normal” (i.e., Western) society, spreading corruption among the populace, and given strong anti-immigrant feelings in Italy, this tired trope feels especially offensive. It’s a charge that could also be leveled against the overdressed mafiosi-like Russian power brokers (including the “laughing Russian agent” played by Ferrara’s wife Cristina Chiriac), seen swilling champagne and laughing about their negative COVID status. Ferrara can’t be blind to the troubling recycling of such caricatures, in which the presence of “the other” furthers the sense of societal decadence, so why go down this path?

Other paths are less clearly marked but not potentially odious: Muslim men at prayer in a mosque is thankfully not meant to carry negative connotations, yet the scene’s significance remains vague at best. The same can be said for much else, though at a stretch one could say the film has something to do with a martyred revolutionary, Justin, whose vision of a just society runs counter to the controlling needs of military forces prepared to waterboard their enemies to stop the spread of such liberating ideology. JJ’s ambiguous position within that military system remains unexplained, just as the destruction of St. Peter’s doesn’t quite jive with the heavily underlined Christological parallels in reference to Justin.

Which brings us to Hawke’s prologue and epilogue, or more accurately Ferrara’s bookended monologues for Hawke. The pre-credit opening has the actor talking to the camera in a kind of private message to the viewer, saying the usual stuff about how excited he was to work with the director, how the script really speaks to this moment but not in a didactic way and so forth. He outlines his two roles, engages our sympathies by acknowledging “this wild year we’ve been living through,” and then the “true” film begins. But of course the prologue is integral to the film, which the epilogue openly asserts: Audiences heading for the doors during the final credits will miss this crucial coda in which Hawke says he didn’t really understand the script and then goes on to spout innocuous platitudes about death, life and the start of a new day, ending it all with “yes, this is part of the film.” It’s all a tease, a kind of manipulation which may or may not be a message to mistrust easily digested information we’re delivered in this fake news era. It’s unlikely Ferrara is telling us what to think, instead demanding we set aside the crusade for answers and ponder the state we’re in.

Ferrara’s Rome is not the Eternal City of most cineastes, and few others are bold enough to make it look so grungy. Largely shot in the late-19th-century Piazza Vittorio neighborhood, a more multiethnic quarter than most parts of the historic center, the film evokes a gloomy cityscape marred by overflowing graffiti, its streets emptied out by the pandemic (exceptional permission was granted for shooting during Italy’s strict lockdown period). For a city celebrated for its light and beauty, it’s disquieting to see Rome through eyes long habituated to the uglier corners. Sean Price Williams’ camera is intentionally over-near to its subjects, using the dislocating effects of close-ups combined with barely lit interiors and exteriors, reminiscent of a blacked-out city during an air raid, to visualize the spirit of oppression. Drone images of deserted streets act in similar ways, lightened just once by a brief shot of maskless people in a café, able to once again enjoy a cup of coffee indoors.

Reviewed at Locarno Film Festival, Aug. 12, 2021. Running time: 85 MIN.

Production: (Germany-U.K.-U.S.) A Capstone Pictures presentation of a Maze Pictures, Rimsky Prods., Almost Never Films, Hammerstone Studios, Macaia Film production. (World sales: Blue Box Int'l, Los Angeles.) Producers: Philipp Kreuzer, Diana Phillips. Executive producers: Alex Lebovici, Danny Chan, Brent Guttman, Don Young, Robert Pessell. Co-producer: Manuel Stefanolo.
Crew: Director, writer: Abel Ferrara. Camera: Sean Price Williams. Editor: Leonardo Daniel Bianchi. Music: Joe Delia.
With: Ethan Hawke, Cristina Chiriac, Phil Neilson, Valerio Mastandrea, Valeria Correale, Dounia Sichov, Mahmut Sifa Erkaya, Korlan Madi, Stephen Gurewitz, Babak Karimi, Carla Lucia Cassola, Anna Ferrara. (English, Russian dialogue)

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Zeros and Ones (2021)

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Zeros and ones.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 1 Review
Kids Say 0 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Challenging experimental movie has violent scenes, language.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 15+?

Person tortured via waterboarding. Dead people shown covered in blood spatters,

A few uses of "f--king." Also "s--t," "motherf----r," "c--ksucker," and a use of

JJ buys drugs (white powder). Character injects drugs into his hand. Cigarette b

A woman seduces the main character, removing his shirt and kissing him. Two scan

Any Positive Content?

Filmmaker seems to be saying something here -- or lots of things -- though it's

JJ is the only real character in the movie, and his behavior is often iffy, whil

Main character is a flawed White man; other characters are seen for very little

Violence & Scariness

Person tortured via waterboarding. Dead people shown covered in blood spatters, with more blood spatters on the wall. Other dead bodies. Explosions. Main character with gun. Soldiers with guns. Boxing.

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

A few uses of "f--king." Also "s--t," "motherf----r," "c--ksucker," and a use of "p---y."

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

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

JJ buys drugs (white powder). Character injects drugs into his hand. Cigarette butts shown. Character drinks vodka from the bottle; others drink vodka shots with dinner. Characters drink sparkling wine.

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

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A woman seduces the main character, removing his shirt and kissing him. Two scantily clad women kiss and caress each other. Naked man depicted in Michelangelo painting.

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

Positive Messages

Filmmaker seems to be saying something here -- or lots of things -- though it's not clear exactly what. Violence and conflict seem to be part of it, as well as (perhaps) idea that things captured by digital format may or may not be real. As with many experimental movies, viewers will likely come away with different ideas. Ultimately, the movie is a challenge, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Positive Role Models

JJ is the only real character in the movie, and his behavior is often iffy, while his goals and achievements are fuzzy.

Diverse Representations

Main character is a flawed White man; other characters are seen for very little time. Two Asian women are shown in a situation drawn from stereotype and objectified in the process (they're depicted kissing and caressing each other). Most characters are European.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Zeros and Ones is an experimental drama by cult-favorite filmmaker Abel Ferrara . It follows an American soldier ( Ethan Hawke ) in Rome during the COVID-19 pandemic who's trying to stop a bombing. The movie is full of strange, intriguing imagery and ideas, and mature viewers are bound to come away with differing interpretations. Violent scenes and images include a character being tortured via waterboarding, dead women covered in spattered blood, soldiers with guns, buildings exploding, and more. Someone seduces the main character, kissing him and removing his shirt, and two scantily clad women kiss and caress each other. Language includes a few uses of "f--king," "motherf----r," "c--ksucker," "s--t," and "p---y." The main character buys drugs (heroin?), and another character injects a drug into his hand. Characters drink vodka shots, vodka out of the bottle, and sparkling wine, and cigarette butts are seen. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

Absolute piece of junk

What's the story.

In ZEROS AND ONES, a soldier named JJ ( Ethan Hawke ) is sent to Rome during the COVID-19 pandemic to discover the whereabouts of his revolutionary brother (also Hawke), who may know something about a potential bombing of the Vatican. JJ learns from his sister-in-law, Valeria (Valeria Correale), that his brother may be dead, in prison, or both. So he starts searching the Roman underworld for clues, encountering all kinds of unusual types and existential dread. Can JJ prevent the attack?

Is It Any Good?

Director Abel Ferrara goes even more deeply than usual into uncommercial experimental mode here, delivering an opaque, baffling movie. Zeros and Ones hardly has any plot, but it does offer a series of nervy ideas and undeniable sensations. If Ferrara's Tommaso and Siberia appealed mainly to the cult director's die-hard fans, then Zeros and Ones makes those two films look positively mainstream, like multiplex popcorn-munchers. This film recalls Jean-Luc Godard's arty, post-New Wave work or Terrence Malick 's more polarizing offerings, wandering from one unexpected moment to something else that feels totally disconnected, with various thoughts like "a hard road leads to a real life" expressed seemingly at random.

The pandemic -- and images of hand-washing and masks -- are among the most familiar things in the movie, providing something of an anchor but also indicating more uncertainty. Hawke is the only other familiar thing here. The movie opens with a video of him introducing the movie and ends with another video of him trying to make sense of what we've just seen. He closes with "yes, this is part of the film." Even the title, Zeros and Ones , is unclear, unless it refers to the digital format in which the movie was made. Whatever Ferrara is trying to say here, whether it's about conflict or acts of violence or something else, it's told by a veteran filmmaker who hasn't lost any of his fire. It's a tough, tricky movie that's worth unpacking.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Zeros and Ones ' violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

What are some of the movie's themes? What did it make you think about?

What is an "experimental" movie, as opposed to a "narrative" movie? Is it possible to blur the lines between the two?

How is sex depicted here? What values are imparted?

How are drinking and drug use depicted? Are they glamorized? Are there consequences? Why does that matter?

Movie Details

In theaters : November 19, 2021
On DVD or streaming : January 4, 2022
Cast : Ethan Hawke , Valerio Mastandrea , Babak Karimi
Director : Abel Ferrara
Studio : Lionsgate
Genre : Drama
Run time : 86 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : language, some violence, bloody images, sexual material and drug content
Last updated : July 12, 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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Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Zeros and Ones (2021)

January 7, 2022 by Robert Kojder

Zeros and Ones , 2021.

Written and Directed by Abel Ferrara. Starring Ethan Hawke, Cristina Chiriac, Phil Neilson, Anna Ferrara, Salvatore Ruocco, Valerio Mastandrea, Babak Karimi, Dounia Sichov, Valeria Correale, Korlan Rachmetova, and Mahmut Sifa Erkaya.

Called to Rome to stop an imminent terrorist bombing, a soldier desperately seeks news of his imprisoned brother — a rebel with knowledge that could thwart the attack. Navigating the capital’s darkened streets, he races to a series of ominous encounters to keep the Vatican from being blown to bits.

Oddly (although I suppose such a term is par for the course with writer and director Abel Ferrara), Zeros and Ones begins with leading man Ethan Hawke speaking directly to the camera. No, not his character; this is the actor himself briefly meditating on what it was like to work with the filmmaker during the height of lockdown within Rome while touching on how this is a bizarrely presented movie of the moment. The entire speech plays like one of those AMC greetings from the cast before an early promotional screening or first-look trailer, but in this case, seeing that Zeros and Ones comes from Lionsgate, I just initially assumed it was the distributor’s instructed method of informing blind paying viewers that they are about to witness something unabashedly unconventional and abstract to the core. Whether or not this plays into the narrative or themes at hand, I will leave you to discover for yourself, but it’s advised not to skip the ending credits. As for the specifics of the narrative, here goes nothing.

Ethan Hawke portrays an unnamed military soldier (although he is credited as JJ) called into pandemic Rome on the watch for a potential terrorist threat to the Vatican. Trust me, it’s a lot less exciting than it sounds (I will say that there is a tiny amount of action here, but not to expect much considering the budget), but the investigative proceedings work as a brooding, darkened, atmospheric all-nighter odyssey through a seedy political underbelly containing major players of various countries. Naturally, no one really seems to be prioritizing the well-being or on the side of our clueless antihero.

JJ encounters a mysterious mother and child that he appears to have a vested interest in protecting, seeks information from a mosque, at one point becomes embroiled in blackmail threatened to forcibly have sex with another woman as part of a twisted political game (the soldier holding JJ at gunpoint also happens to be played by Abel Ferrara’s wife, Cristina Chiriac), but is most presently concerned with unearthing whether or not his revolutionary brother is alive or dead. Also noteworthy is that Ethan Hawke also plays JJ’s brother during a few suspenseful flashbacks and is relatively captivating in the dual roles.

Putting it straight out there, Zeros and Ones is not a film that one comes away from once or multiple times with even a fundamental understanding of the characters and plot. Abel Ferrara works with his frequent collaborative grunge composer, Joe Delia, propulsively finding more thrills by allowing JJ and the audience to share in the paranoia of whatever corruption is brewing. Cinematographer Sean Price Williams also adds a stylistic touch with aerial perspectives, night and heat vision framing, and a grimy edge when it comes to JJs freedom fighting brother. With that said, it’s in that dynamic where Zeros and Ones come close to touching upon anything resembling emotional resonance. Such shortcomings would assuredly sink most films, although there is an unsettling urgency here as Abel Ferrara simultaneously confounds and beguiles. The ending itself, alongside its post-credits reveals, also had some intriguing recontextualization.

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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‘Zeros and Ones’ Film Review: Ethan Hawke’s Mission Is Murky in More Ways Than One

Director Abel Ferrara raises more questions than he answers, but the pursuit of the truth (for the protagonist and for the audience) proves compelling enough

Everyone has picked a side in writer-director Abel Ferrara’s cryptic new thriller “Zeros and Ones.” His pandemic-set mood piece concerns the clash of warring forces in a reality on the brink of collapse, where the images that cameras capture offer a distorted look into the abyss. Narrative lucidity hides under the artist’s self-imposed mandate to instill somberness at the expense of character and plot.

American soldier JJ (a scruffy Ethan Hawke) arrives in Rome wearing a face mask. As he walks through the train station and into the city in a long sequence that establishes the context, we turn to a sanitation employee power-washing surfaces. A shell of its bustling self, the Italian capital, and later the Vatican, appear deserted. The recognition sets in; this is not entirely dystopian fiction but rather an unsettling, recognizable normal.

Ferrara makes no explicit mention of the COVID-19 pandemic, and no other explanation for the facial coverings is given, almost as if he took for granted that part of the screenplay had already been written for him and downloaded into our minds by the hand of our collective uncertainty.

Walking shadowy streets, JJ embarks on a Stations of the Cross–like hunt, visiting a series of enigmatic characters hiding in plain sight to obtain intel about his twin brother’s whereabouts. Insert voiceover over religious imagery (Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”) anticipating the end of the systems of oppression as we know them and the commencement of a new, presumably fairer era. The radicalized preacher behind the prophetic statements is Justin (also Hawke), the sibling in question as well as a wanted man.

In cinematographer Sean Price Williams’ grimy frames, the director finds an accomplice in creating an atmosphere of confusion amid the darkness that shrouds the holy city. Wielding a hand-held camera, Price Williams seeks angles that reveal the symbols in the background as JJ carries out on-the-ground reconnaissance. A dance of limited light and shifting focus while walking along with the antihero conveys an unnerving energy, that of an enemy lurking even when unseen.

From the frustratingly evasive presentation of the events, with scarce details about what any of this means, one can at least infer there’s a plan in motion that must be stopped for order to remain. JJ and other American soldiers on the ground repeatedly demand to know “When?” and “Where?” from every person they interrogate. Digs at American imperialism also abound in unabashed form.

Although we are blind as to what exactly they need to prevent, Ferrara’s fondness for the sordid fills in the time, whether that is two Asian women touching each other erotically as the leading soldier purchases illegal substances or JJ forced to engage in sexual activity while being recorded for blackmailing purposes. For all the sleaziness he witnesses, Hawke’s character never skips dabbing hand sanitizer when entering a new space. The practice resonates as both timely and knowingly comedic.

When playing JJ, Hawke bargains in muted grimaces, translating the heavy impotence and guilt of being part of the mission in place to apprehend Justin for terrorist ideation. Tormented by betrayal, he maintains a stoic façade as he carries out his calculated quest in this strange underworld. There are no furious outbursts or moments of lightness, just a steady stream of tension.

But when the often-daring actor gets to his scene as Justin, a self-anointed messianic figure, Hawke goes for broke, reciting an impromptu manifesto somewhere between the Declaration of Independence and a Catholic prayer. With an ardent, almost maniacal conviction, this revolutionary martyr echoes Hawke’s protagonist in Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed,” a priest on an ecological crusade.

“Zeros and Ones” is the fourth release by the incredibly prolific director in less than two years (the others being “Tommaso,” “Sportin’ Life,” and “Siberia”), marking a period of vigorous creation for him with assorted effectiveness in the output. But even at his most impenetrable, Ferrara is nothing if not a filmmaker conscious of all elements that compose a cinematic experience, and as obvious as one could imagine that is for everyone who dedicates their time to this medium, that’s not always the case.

Here he plays with the frame rate, forcing us to observe closer details he deems notable, even if we can’t comprehend why. He shows segments of scenes through the lens of a camera in night vision to further note the distinction between what we see and the truth, or he deploys Joe Delia’s score, heavy on military drums, like a bold motif.

And though many of these choices come off as too obviously deliberate, their inclusion builds a language of expression that communicates, if not precisely discernible ideas, a feeling of dread and discomfort. The seams show in the explosions of sacred buildings achieved via low-grade VFX that fails to convince, a decision from an obstinate artist unfazed by any demands of technical perfection but bent on completing his bizarre point about the future. There’s something admirable in that mad vision.

Indecipherable to a fault but in the end surprisingly hopeful, “Zeros and Ones” feels like diving into a murky river to search for a missing object, fully aware one might never find it but still willing to get wet in its slush for the sake of trying.

“Zeros and Ones” opens in US theaters, on demand, and on Apple TV+ on Nov. 19.

LOCARNO 2021 Competition

Review: Zeros and Ones

by Giorgia Del Don

13/08/2021 - Co-produced by Germany, the UK and the USA, Abel Ferrara’s latest work turns out to be a chaotic and difficult film to decipher, held aloft by an omnipresent score

Captained by an ethereal and unflappable Ethan Hawke , stepping into the shoes of an American soldier called JJ whose mission remains largely unknown, Zeros and Ones [ + see also: trailer film profile ] plays on an endless form of suspense which sadly becomes a little taxing. Introduced by Hawke himself, who explained Abel Ferrara ’s motivations for making the film – to react to the health crisis, but also as a result of the very same reasons which drive an actor to choose the projects best suited to him - Zeros and Ones hurls us into a dystopic world inhabited by lugubrious and unscrupulous characters as of its opening shots.

Summarising the story told by Abel Ferrara in his latest cinematic effort, which was presented in a world premiere within the Locarno Film Festival ’s International Competition, is no easy thing, because the film introduces us to an almost infinite number of characters, whose only common link is JJ, an American solider on a mission in Rome, which is being attacked by apocalyptic forms.

The film revolves around JJ’s nervous, paranoid wanderings, which might be aimed at saving the eternal city from destruction, freeing his anarchic brother (as the protagonist describes him) or saving the latter’s wife and daughter from an unknown, imminent danger. JJ’s real motivations remain unclear in a coming and going of increasingly sinister encounters, involving religious fanatics (both Catholics and Muslims), rugged, oriental drugs traffickers and voluptuous mafiosi women hailing from the East. The film’s vagueness reaches a climax when Hawke, aka JJ, is forced at gunpoint to impregnate one of the two mysterious girls while being filmed using the camera JJ wields compulsively throughout the film , all to the tune of an unlikely song by Loreena McKennitt .

Whilst, at a certain point, we realise that the chaos is caused by the destruction of the Vatican (which is blown away by a bomb), there’s nothing to help us understand who JJ is looking for and why everyone is so angry at him. Despite the surreal atmosphere dominating Ferrara’s political thriller, it still feels familiar to us thanks to the inclusion of habits which are now part and parcel of all our lives: the wearing of a mask and the nigh-on automatic reflex of washing our hands. Why the director chose to combine a health crisis with a political thriller might be a question worth asking, given that, ultimately, the theme of the pandemic is only explored at surface level and remains a peripheral and sadly trivial thing. Is Zeros and Ones the director’s attempt to lend form to the fears and paranoias which have inhabited him over the past year and a half? Nothing is certain, but this might be one of the keys to understanding this film, which is decidedly difficult to decipher and whose only logical narrative seems to come from the music whose presence is constant from beginning to end. It’s a shame, though, that a director like Ferrara, who has always proved himself to be a visionary and cult filmmaker, didn’t see fit to include any “female” characters who transcend basic stereotypes; instead, mothers, prostitutes, femmes fatales and seducers abound. From this point of view, at least, the film could definitely have done better.

Zeros and Ones is produced by Maze Pictures (Germany), Hammerstone Studios (USA), Rimsky Productions (UK) and Macaia Film (Italy) in co-production with Almost Never Films (USA). World sales are in the hands of Blue Box International.

(Translated from Italian)

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Wednesday, November 17, 2021

'zeros and ones' (2021) movie review.

Ethan Hawke ( Sinister ) plays J.J., an enigmatic American military man stationed in Rome. Over the course of one night, he navigates the COVID-riddled nighttime streets to thwart an imminent attack somehow connected to his brother, Justin (also played by Ethan Hawke, First Reformed ), a vehement radical with extremist ties. The plot unfurls like a quiet, contemplative, political Heart of Darkness as J.J. traverses the Italian capital, from one fraught, shadowy encounter to the next.

[Related Reading: 'Predestination' Review: Ethan Hawke's Unusual, Unexpected Time-Travel Thriller]

COVID colors the entire film, both narrative and production. Gritty and grainy, shots and scenes feel stolen and illicit, pilfered when and where Ferrara and company could find them on empty Italian streets. Characters often interact via video-calls, which grounds the story in a specific moment, but also likely served a practical function during filming. J.J. dons an omnipresent mask, and at each stop has his temperature taken and douses himself with hand sanitizer. It paints a portrait of terrorist hunting in a time of a raging plague, piling a layer of tension on top of J.J.’s search.

[Related Reading: 'In a Valley of Violence' Movie Review]

Clocking in at 86 minutes, with an introduction by Hawke and lengthy opening and closing credits, this is more like 75. Tops. The earlier uses of words like sparse and lean aren’t hyperbole. And while the end result plays understandably thin, Zeros and Ones offers up intriguing ideas with which to grapple. Religious iconography peppers the film, as well as ideas of duality, loyalty, and more, and though they often ring hollow and unexplored, the film nevertheless offers a fascinating, often gripping watch. [Grade: B-]

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Zeros and Ones’ on VOD, in Which Ethan Hawke Roams the Roman Shadows Mid-Pandemic

Where to stream:.

Zeros and Ones
Ethan Hawke

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Now on VOD, Zeros and Ones is a pandemic thriller for art’s sake by Abel Ferrara, the certified nut behind infamous ’90s indie staple Bad Lieutenant . He casts Ethan Hawke as an American videographer-soldier AND his anarchist/communist/terrorist/pick an -ist (as long as it’s not fascist) twin brother, the former on assignment in locked-down Rome, and the latter imprisoned back in the good old U.S. of A. Deducing what Ferrara has to say might be a task fit only for fools, so maybe he’ll kick up a mood or two during these 86 minutes.

ZEROS AND ONES : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We open on Hawke’s face in closeup, introducing himself as Ethan Hawke. The movie hasn’t started yet — he provides an amiable intro in which he points out that Ferrara isn’t giving us anything remotely “didactic” in regards to the current Covid era, which may be an obvious statement, considering the image of a weeping, naked Harvey Keitel is forever emblazoned in our memories.

On to the narrative at hand: Rome. 2020. MY KINGDOM FOR SOME DECENT LIGHTING. Every scene is a squint into a grainy pitch. A lonely subway train rolls into Rome, and Hawke’s character, J.J., disembarks, walking through the abandoned station and streets. He goes home, at least I think it’s home, washes his hands, chats with a friend or agent via Zoom, leaves, walks a bit, gets a temp check by a soldier, hops in a Jeep, gets vague instructions from a superior — “that’s the news of the world,” “shoot it so they believe it” — and sets off with video camera in hand. It’s night. And even if it isn’t night, It’s always like night in this movie.

He drops in on his brother’s wife and daughter, who wakes up crying. He has a scintillating conversation with the little girl: “What are you dreamin’ about? Fish?” She doesn’t reply, possibly because he’s pretty much the opposite of warm and fun. Next stop, a vague, unidentifiable locale — the movie is full of these — for some white-powder drugs and a glimpse at a tablet computer, which is home to a disturbing video of his brother being shot up with some serum and interrogated. Then, he chats with a homeless man whose cardboard box looks like a coffin in an overhead shot; visits a Muslim prayer room; joins two other soldiers to film them waterboarding a boxer; goes to church so a nun can deliver some cryptic dialogue. There’s more stuff here, including a strange scene with some Russians and a couple troublesome phony-CGI explosions at Roman landmarks. Piece it all together and what do you get? A whole lotta hellifiknow.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I dunno if this impenetrable bullshit is preferable to Michael Bay-produced Covid exploitationist flick Songbird . If so, then just barely.

Performance Worth Watching: Hawke has had a strange career, ranging from the sublime ( Boyhood , the Before trilogy) to the grippingly intense ( Training Day , First Reformed ) to pretentious twaddle ( Tesla , Great Expectations ). Guess which of the three this movie falls under?

Memorable Dialogue: “Jesus was just another soldier. Another war casualty. But on whose side?” — J.J., via voiceover, proving he’s the life of every party

Sex and Skin: Dark, grainy footage (of course) of two scantily clad women making out.

Our Take: I caught myself dreamin’ about things while watching Zeros and Ones . Things like fish! The film is incomprehensible, ugly to look at and utterly humorless, which is a not nice way of saying it’s “challenging.” Ferrara stirs some of his favorite stuff — sex, violence, religion, sexy violence against religion — into a big pot of early-Covid existential bleakness, and all we can do is accept it as a kind of skanky mood piece, dim and damp and everyone close enough to the camera that we can smell their pits. Perhaps it goes without saying that mass death and isolation linger silently at the margins of the plot, which otherwise begs interpretation. Good luck with that.

Certainly, all this is intentional. Ferrara has a rep as a provocateur, so knock yourself out trying to wring roiling political metaphors from the rag of stern Americans and laughing Russians crossing paths in the skeevy Roman underground, occasionally emerging on the street to make the Vatican go kablooey. I’m sure there’s nuance here in the gritty, pixelated shadows, in Hawke’s personification of an almost-character, in whatever else is going on — read into it as you may. But it’s also eminently dismissable.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Despite its maddening opacity, I truly believe Zeros and Ones has an audience. It’s just very, very, very small.

Will you stream or skip the Ethan Hawke pandemic thriller #ZerosAndOnes on VOD? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) November 22, 2021

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

Where to stream Zeros and Ones

Prime Video
Stream It Or Skip It

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Zeros and Ones review – Abel Ferrara’s head-scratching lockdown thriller

Ethan Hawke plays a US mercenary on an incomprehensible mission in a murky conspiracy thriller that seems designed to baffle viewers

10 Mar 2022

Pre-pandemic, Abel Ferrara left us out in the cold with a patience-testing dreamscape about a man whose mission was impossible to make sense of. Now he has done the same, though arguably with even less narrative cohesion, in his latest Zeros and Ones . If you've seen Siberia , you'll know that's no mean feat. This film appears to promise a kind of siege thriller, poster adorned with an image of the Vatican in flames. Misleading as that is, you have to feel for the marketing team: there would be no other way to sell what the director delivers here.

Ethan Hawke (with long hair tied back) plays JJ, a stoic US mercenary assigned to prevent something from happening in the vicinity of the Vatican. His mission will lead him into the company of various unscrupulous characters, a rogue's gallery of terrorists, spies, and drug dealers, for a series of cryptic conversations – and also his own brother, Justin, a madman prone to messianic rants who has been taken hostage, and whom JJ believes to be a “revolutionary.” Justin is also played by Hawke, only with his hair down to help us differentiate.

This is a guerrilla-style pandemic film that seems to address the anxious state of the world through murky footage and a disorienting plot that constantly eludes any attempt to work out what it all means. The result is in many ways impenetrable, but I suspect some will fall under its strange, hypnotic spell, scenes held together by the casting of a game-for-it Hawke, who seems to have a soft spot for morally dubious war thrillers (see Good Kill ).

Ferrara shot the film quickly under lockdown conditions, and it reeks of pandemic cinema in the usual ways: empty street locations, crude camerawork, a general sense that the script didn’t take that long to write. People can be seen wearing marks, temperatures are taken with laser guns – what it has to say about the pandemic is anyone's guess, though there is knowing humour in watching Hawke repeatedly adopt to the protocol of using hand sanitiser despite the nature of his work.

Perhaps the most baffling aspect is the inclusion of an intro and outro, which has Hawke – as himself or playing himself, it isn’t clear – addressing the camera and talking about why he decided to make the film and what he thinks now, having made it. I can’t think of a reason to include these moments, except at some studio behest to make sense of something nonsensical. But Ferrara doesn't seem like the type to take notes. These scenes serve a purpose – though maybe only in the director's mind.

Ferrara's late-career experiments are not entirely uninteresting, but they’re not exactly compelling, either. Still, I can’t deny that something of this film’s edgy mood stuck with me, a lingering sense that hidden among the rubble there is a real point being made. Answers on a postcard.

Zeros and Ones is now available on digital platforms.

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'Zeros and Ones' Review: Abel Ferrara’s latest doesn’t add up to enough

Abel ferrara and ethan hawke team up for 'zeroes and ones,' a disappointing outing that fails to transform a quarantined rome into a sociopolitical battlefield..

Ethan Hawke plays a U.S. military operative searching for his twin brother in Abel Ferrara's 'Zeros and Ones.'

What to Watch Verdict

Ferrara's determination to make something during the pandemic doesn't square with his obvious shortage of resources, and worse than that, good ideas.

Ferrara has been so prolific over the last decade that a stinker like this will hardly register as a blip in his accomplishments

Muddy digital cinematography by Sean Price Williams obscures everything that audiences see or care about

Hawke's turn(s) as twin brothers don't add up to one convincing performance

It’s funny how so much lip service gets paid to bloated blockbusters that feel soulless and calculated to try and maximize generic audience enjoyment while the actual opposite of these get virtually ignored. I’m not talking about thoughtful, intuitive, artsy projects, but ones where filmmakers just decide to make something, anything, without quite being sure what it is or why they’re doing it. Zeros and Ones , you may guess, is one of these.

Abel Ferrara ( Bad Lieutenant ) is a New York filmmaking legend and indie institution. His latest is a truly awful movie, an exercise in getting out into the world and staging a production, evidently because he was determined to defy worldwide COVID-related shutdowns, whether or not he or his collaborators actually had anything to say. There is some degree of enjoyment involved in proclaiming that those opposite-pole cash grabs are garbage, but I take no joy in reporting that this is a lousy effort from a frequently great director.

Opening with an announcement from star Ethan Hawke meant to convey his excitement at the opportunity to work with Ferrara but in fact coming across like some sort of hostage video, the film follows his character JJ as he navigates the mostly empty streets of Rome in military fatigues, looking for his twin brother Justin. JJ and the people he encounters all wear masks — this was clearly shot during some of the earliest days of the pandemic — while Ferrara establishes an ambient menace that never gets explained, but has left the Eternal City as a war zone. As Ferrara is now a Rome native after relocating from his NYC stomping grounds, the filmmaker exploits his familiarity with the city’s labyrinthine streets to build a maze for JJ to navigate, but he never manages to tell him (or us) exactly what’s at the end of it.

Ferrara’s scuzzy Catholicism gets a routine workout here as the story attempts to draw wider parallels to holy wars and terrorist attacks, but the features in his style become bugs underneath the muddy digital cinematography of Sean Price Williams ( Good Time , Tesla ), which renders action, drama, motivation and meaning indecipherable and uninteresting. JJ’s estranged brother Justin only appears briefly, but Hawke spends a great deal of the movie behind a mask and the rest of it scowling his way through scenarios that are alternately too conventional and off the wall to fit together cohesively.

In one scene, he encounters Asian sex workers; in another, he gets forced at gunpoint to have sex on camera. The explosive conflicts that mount around the Vatican are executed with extreme closeups of digital explosions. The skirmishes that follow all feel like they’ve been staged in an empty alley that was redressed and shot from the opposite angle to create return fire.

Since his feature debut Driller Killer , Ferrara has mostly been able to merge sick, weird and wild ideas with deeper themes, testing audiences and thrilling them at the same time. King of New York and Bad Lieutenant are classics, and he got one of the few great performances out of Madonna in Dangerous Game . He’s always been prolific, but he’s made nine films and a handful of shorts since 2012, a sort of career resurgence that only a handful of people seemed to notice, which may also explain why he never started coasting. In which case, he’s earned the right to make at least a few bad movies, and anyway the law of averages practically makes at least one or two an inevitability.

Zeroes and Ones , however, feels more like a guerilla effort by a restless artist determined to make something whether or not it was ready to be made, which is why Hawke’s effusive confession at the top of it feels a bit tragic. He waited his entire career to work with Ferrara and this is what the two of them made? Sorry for you and no thanks from me.

That said, Hawke and Ferrara can both be forgiven; their reputations will go unharmed and hopefully this first collaboration will pave the way for more successful ones in the future. In fact, the fairest way to consider this movie is as a COVID-era stopgap, the same thing that musicians did in their houses or apartments to pass the time when they couldn’t get together with others or go out. Zeros and Ones , like most of the art that’s been created because of, inspired by and during the pandemic, seems destined to be forgotten — and ultimately that’s probably best for everyone involved.

Zeroes and Ones will release in theaters and on digital Nov. 19.

Todd Gilchrist is a Los Angeles-based film critic and entertainment journalist with more than 20 years’ experience for dozens of print and online outlets, including Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly and Fangoria. An obsessive soundtrack collector, sneaker aficionado and member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Todd currently lives in Silverlake, California with his amazing wife Julie, two cats Beatrix and Biscuit, and several thousand books, vinyl records and Blu-rays.

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After three consecutive features starring Willem Defoe , Abel Ferrara enlists Ethan Hawke for Zeros and Ones. The result is a confounding thriller, more an oddity than a standout in either’s filmographies. Nonetheless, the movie contains flashes of inspiration.

Admittedly, Zeros and One s has a rather minimal narrative to grasp as a viewer. The movie is far less focused on plot than atmosphere, making the basic story components quite incoherent.

Here are the confirmable details: J.J. (Ethan Hawke) is an American soldier stationed in Rome. The Vatican has been bombed, and the city is in chaos. Everyone wears masks to guard against an undefined contagion. J.J. reaches the Vatican with a dual purpose: to investigate the explosion, and to search for his missing, unnamed, and revolutionary-minded twin brother (also Ethan Hawke). Over the course of a night, J.J. hunts across the Vatican for any information.

Ferrara as Writer-Director

Ferrara both wrote and directed Zeros and Ones . His screenplay is baffling in terms of narrative. J.J. sets out to track down various contacts, but his relationships to them and what purpose they serve in either of his quests is never quite explained. The result is a story pruned of access points for audience investment full of characters so vague they comingle into a featureless stream of story beats.

Has this worked before for Ferrara? Yes. His Siberia is an exceptional example of a more lyrical and experimental film without a defined plot. Yet, that film committed fully to the experience, while Zeros and Ones ends up drifting along in the liminal space between experimental and narrative cinema, giving us just enough information to wonder, but never enough to satisfy.

The script’s weaknesses are a shame because what Ferrara does excel at, alongside cinematographer Sean Price Williams , is visual flair. Through his camera, Rome transforms into a noir-adjacent hellscape. Empty alleys and paths splashed with shadow and rivulets of yellow and red light.

Ferrara favors fractured frames, showing only portions of a face, or corners of a room. When he pulls his camera back, such as when he fixes J.J. in the center of an abandoned street that dwarfs him, the film suggests a push and pull between intimate and public experiences. J.J. nearly disappears into these landscapes, a contrast to when he is central to the many close-ups during his meetings with various figures. The shame is that no amount of dynamic mise-en-scene can distract from how hollow the emotional and narrative stakes of the movie feel.

Ethan Hawke

Paired with Ferrara’s visual flair, it is Hawke’s dual-performance as J.J. and his twin that salvages Zeros and Ones from careening entirely into the realm of a lost cause. J.J. is a stone-faced military man who would likely vibe well with any of Liam Neeson’s various middle-aged action heroes .

Contrastingly, his twin is a bombastic extremist. Unfortunately, the twin only has one proper scene in the film, but it stands as one of the most engaging sequences. Hawke explodes, screaming scripture and lyrics from American folk songs at unidentified captors who have kidnapped him. It’s reminiscent of his recent standout work in The Good Lord Bird , both reminders that Hawke can erupt when necessary.

This is not to say that the rest of the movie bears out a poor performance. That is not the case at all. Even with the constant ambiguity of the stakes and plot, Hawke locates a stoic intensity that anchors J.J. from scene to scene. His eyes in particular suggest a man always calculating the odds and benefits of a given situation.

Hawke has always possessed a screen presence that demands attention, and so his take on J.J. turns that factor into audience curiosity. The unfortunate fact however is that due to the underlying script Hawke’s strengths cannot overcome poor material. He does the most with what he has, but there seems to be quite little here to work with.

In an alternate reality, where Ferrara’s screenplay better capitalized on the clear religious and moral undertones of examining twin brothers and a bombing at the Vatican, Zeros and Ones could have emerged as a fascinating complement to Paul Schrader’s exceptional First Reformed . Schrader’s film provides a remarkable script for Hawke to bite into. It also lets Schrader’s directorial style sing. But alas, the version of Zeros and Ones that ended up in the world is a forgettable entry in the careers of two otherwise towering talents.

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Movie Review: Two ideas compete for the soul of ‘My Old Ass’ but sweetness finally wins

The Associated Press

September 11, 2024, 11:26 AM

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They say tripping on psychedelic mushrooms triggers hallucinations, anxiety, paranoia and nervousness. In the case of Elliott, an 18-year-old restless Canadian, they prompt a visitor.

“Dude, I’m you,” says the guest, as she nonchalantly burns a ‘smores on a campfire next to a very high and stunned Elliott. “Well, I’m a 39-year-old you. What’s up?”

What’s up, indeed: Director-writer Megan Park has crafted a wistful coming-of-age tale using this comedic device for “My Old Ass” and the results are uneven even though she nails the landing.

After the older Elliott proves who she is — they share a particular scar, childhood memories and a smaller left boob — the time-travel advice begins: Be nice to your brothers and mom, and stay away from a guy named Chad.

“Can we hug?” asks the older Elliott. They do. “This is so weird,” says the younger Elliott, who then makes things even weirder when she asks for a kiss — to know what it’s like kissing yourself. The older Elliott soon puts her number into the younger’s phone under the name “My Old Ass.” Then they keep in touch, long after the effects of the ‘shrooms have gone.

Part of the movie’s problem that can’t be ignored is that the two Elliotts look nothing alike. Maisy Stella plays the coltish young version and a wry Aubrey Plaza the older. Both turn in fine performances but the visuals are slowly grating.

The arrival of the older Elliott coincides with her younger self counting down the days until she can flee from her small town of 300 in the Muskoka Lakes region to college in Toronto, where “my life is about to start.” She’s sick of life on a cranberry farm.

Park’s scenes and dialogue are unrushed and honest as Elliott takes her older self’s advice and tries to repair relationships with her golf-loving older brother and gloriously odd younger one, who has an obsession with Saoirse Ronan. This is a filmmaker who knows siblings and how they vibe.

Then Chad pops up.

Chad is sweet and thoughtful and goofy and cute and smart and resourceful and really, really into Elliott. “Everything about him feels so right,” the younger wails. A central question in the movie is why My Old Ass wants young Elliott to stay away from Chad, played so beautifully by Percy Hynes White that you want to shake sense into both women.

Both parts of Park’s movie — the coming-of-age tale and the me-visiting-from-the-future tale — work, but maybe not in the same movie, a little like the two different Elliotts. The tone of each part are different, one wistful, the other zany, and together threaten to pull “My Old Ass” apart.

Aside from a stunningly funny ‘shroom-induced dream sequence that includes a Justin Bieber concert, Park is strongest exploring the liminal space between one thing ending and another beginning — soft beautiful memories that are sad and yet necessary.

Both Chad and Elliott’s mother (a strong Maria Dizzia) have lovely dialogue about the profound effects that tiny moments of change can have: Sometimes you know it has ended forever — like a baby transitioning from your bed to a crib — and sometimes you never get to say goodbye, like the last day you spent all day messing around with your friends on bikes.

Even if the road is a little rocky, stay for a satisfying end, one in which, somewhat predictably, the younger Elliott offers some wise advice to the older. There’s a moment or two when Chad threatens to overpower “My Old Ass” and steer it into a third movie, but Park knows her way out. It’s a story that has always been about the younger Elliott and seeing her finally steer her boat — literally and metaphorically — is a joy.

“My Old Ass,” an Amazon MGM Studios release that opens in movie theaters in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and wide Sept. 27, is rated R for “for language throughout, drug use and sexual material.” Running time: 89 minutes. two and a half stars out of four.

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‘transformers one’ review: chris hemsworth and brian tyree henry lead a delightful, franchise-revitalizing prequel.

Directed by Josh Cooley ('Toy Story 4') and based on the Hasbro toy line, the origin story explores the friendship — and eventual animosity — between Optimus Prime and Megatron.

By Frank Scheck

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‘Transformers One’ Review: This Animated Robot Prequel Is Rusty Around the Edges

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It is admittedly a futile exercise to get offended over the sanctity of the “Transformers” franchise, which from its early days as an ’80s cartoon favorite has always existed in service of selling kids cool toy robots that can transform into firetrucks or fighter jets. Still, the war between the virtuous Autobots and the sniveling Decepticons has enough sheer weirdness to it to serve as inspiration for compelling fiction, even if Michael Bay has never managed to crack that code. Spinoffs like the E.T.-with-a-yellow-robot buddy movie “Bumblebee,” the surprisingly intelligent 2010s cartoon “Transformers: Prime,” the hilariously cruel 1986 animated film that featured Orson Welles as a planet-sized robot and traumatized a generation by violently killing Optimus Prime, and operatic (and queer) IDW comic book series “More Than Meets The Eye” have shown there’s a way to wrangle all of this sci-fi mythology into something that means something beyond ensuring good holiday sales for Hasbro executives. Related Stories ‘South Park’ Is Skipping the Election ‘On Purpose,’ but Also So That Paramount Can ‘Figure All Their S**t Out’ Led by ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,’ September Box Office Wants to Pick Up Where Summer Left Off

Would you believe that Orion stumbles upon a sign pointing to where the Matrix might be? Would you believe that he drags a group of friends — including his bestie that will one day become Megatron D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry, providing way more gravity and effort than this movie deserves), stick-in-the-mud supervisor Elita (Scarlett Johansson), and the hyperactive hermit B-127 to the surface to search for it? Would you believe that, in the process, he discovers the real story behind the circumstances of his planet and must take charge of a resistance to become a hero? At every stage in the film, “Transformers One” pretty much goes exactly where you’d expect it to. There’s very little to savor in the film, which chugs from plot point to plot point without much room to subvert your expectations, or build on its formulaic, paint-by-numbers plot and its underdeveloped central theme “believe in a better future.” It’s all executed competently but joylessly, with zero fun to be had as it labors across an hour and 40 minute runtime that feels both too short and painfully long.

The center of this tale, in the grand tradition of prequels like the “X-Men” series or “Wicked,” lies in the tight, lightly homoerotic bond between the main hero and his future enemy. But there’s very little to grasp onto with the friendship between Orion and D-16; the film is content to have them tell us about how close they are rather than show us with action. D-16’s chip on his shoulder and slow devolution into robo-fascism is poorly defined and overly rushed to the point of incoherence, leaving zero oil in the tank to give the inevitable final confrontation and Orion’s pleas that they were like brothers some much-needed charge. It’s a problem that all of “Transformers One,” which is content to take the easiest and most expected route rather than offering something deeper, has. As Orion begins to take on a leadership role to fight the power in the film’s climax, he shares wisdom he learned from mentor Alpha Trion (Laurence Fishbourne) that “a transformer is not defined by the core in his chest, but by the spark at his center.” If that’s true, it’s bad news for “Transformers One,” which doesn’t have much spark to speak of.

Paramount Pictures will release “Transformers One” in theater on September 20.

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Zeros and Ones movie review & film summary (2021)
Played, as the title character in "Tommaso" was, by Willem Dafoe. "Zeros and Ones" returns to Italy. Indeed, its narrative hinges on one of the most famous and sacrosanct places there. This movie, too, features a man in emotional isolation, played now by Ethan Hawke instead of Dafoe. In a sense, this is Ferrara's pandemic quarantine ...
Zeros and Ones
Rated 0.5/5 Stars • Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 07/24/23 Full Review Dan K Zeros and Ones is the Title and also my Review Score. Discipline, Extreme Discipline, Extreme Professional Discipline.
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Zeros and Ones Rated R for temptation and torture. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Amazon , Google Play and other ...
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Zeros and Ones: Directed by Abel Ferrara. With Ethan Hawke, Cristina Chiriac, Phil Neilson, Valerio Mastandrea. An American soldier stationed in Rome with the Vatican blown up, embarks on a hero's journey to uncover and defend against an unknown enemy threatening the entire world.
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Rated R, 1 hour 25 minutes. Behind its cosmetic nods to the current pandemic, Zeros and Ones is rooted in fairly conventional conspiracy thriller tropes. Based on one of Ferrara's older script ...
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Zeros and Ones - Metacritic. Summary Jericho (Ethan Hawke) is an American soldier stationed in post-apocalyptic Rome under a pandemic and war-torn lockdown. After witnessing the Vatican blown up into the night sky, he sets out on a mission to uncover and document the truth for the world to see and stop the true terrorists responsible.
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And while "Zeros and Ones" may be incomprehensible even by the nonlinear standards of recent work like 2020's Jungian dream poem "Siberia," the confusion of its plot is offset by the ...
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Zeros and Ones is a 2021 American-Italian thriller film written and directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Ethan Hawke. ... On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 55% based on 55 reviews, with an average rating of 5/10. [7] At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, ...
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Prolific cult filmmaker Abel Ferrara's penchant for artistic abstraction lives on in Zeros and Ones, the director's meandering effort in pandemic cinema.Ferrara shot on the freshly vacant ...
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Zeros and Ones, starring Ethan Hawke, is a sparse, spooky fever dream with no clear direction and very little clarity. ... All Reviews Editor's Choice Game Reviews Movie Reviews TV Show Reviews ...
Zeros and Ones (2021)
Prismark10 5 December 2021. Abel Ferrara's Zeros and Ones is an empty conceptual mess. Here is a guerrilla filmmaker who is running on empty but who still manages to persuade pseudo intellectual film critics that he is making art. Ethan Hawke speaks to the camera that this is a movie about the world today.
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Zeros and Ones Movie Review
Our review: Parents say: ( 1 ): Kids say: Not yet rated Rate movie. Director Abel Ferrara goes even more deeply than usual into uncommercial experimental mode here, delivering an opaque, baffling movie. Zeros and Ones hardly has any plot, but it does offer a series of nervy ideas and undeniable sensations.
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Review: Zeros and Ones
Zeros and Ones. 13/08/2021 - Co-produced by Germany, the UK and the USA, Abel Ferrara's latest work turns out to be a chaotic and difficult film to decipher, held aloft by an omnipresent score. Ethan Hawke in Zeros and Ones. ] plays on an endless form of suspense which sadly becomes a little taxing. Introduced by Hawke himself, who explained ...
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'Zeros And Ones' (2021) Movie Review Abel Ferrara's pandemic-shot terrorism thriller, Zeros and Ones, presents a difficult mystery to unravel. In the end, it remains to be seen whether or not finding a concrete solution is even entirely possible, but the sparse, lean, meditative tale offers an esoteric and, most importantly, compelling ...
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Zeros and Ones. Now on VOD, Zeros and Ones is a pandemic thriller for art's sake by Abel Ferrara, the certified nut behind infamous '90s indie staple Bad Lieutenant. He casts Ethan Hawke as an ...
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Pre-pandemic, Abel Ferrara left us out in the cold with a patience-testing dreamscape about a man whose mission was impossible to make sense of. Now he has done the same, though arguably with even less narrative cohesion, in his latest Zeros and Ones. If you've seen Siberia, you'll know that's no mean feat.This film appears to promise a kind of siege thriller, poster adorned with an image of ...
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STILL OF ETHAN HAWKE IN "ZEROS AND ONES". Admittedly, Zeros and Ones has a rather minimal narrative to grasp as a viewer. The movie is far less focused on plot than atmosphere, making the basic story components quite incoherent. Here are the confirmable details: J.J. (Ethan Hawke) is an American soldier stationed in Rome.
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