The Hall Monitor 10/26/2025

Bruce Hall’s weekly picks and pans from the screen. Who gets the pass?

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Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

There are dirty scoundrels, there are rotten scoundrels, and then there are…

Starring: Steve Martin, Michael Caine, Glenne Headly
Director: Frank Oz
Where to Watch: Paramount+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and wherever charm still pays the rent.

Synopsis:

Two con men—one refined, one ridiculous—compete to swindle a wealthy heiress on the French Riviera. Michael Caine plays the cultured Lawrence Jamieson, who seduces his way into fortunes with aristocratic precision. Think James Bond, ten years into a (safely) lucrative retirement. Freddy Benson is a brash, small-time hustler whose arrival threatens Lawrence’s operation. Think Steve Martin, ten years into an (extended) psychological breakdown.

Their rivalry devolves into a profoundly unscrupulous bet that becomes an escalating series of pranks, scams, and double-crosses, culminating in a finale that’s as audacious as it is hilarious.

Highlights:

Every frame drips with old-school opulence: Mediterranean vistas, tuxedos, champagne — and the kind of performance timing only a pair of seasoned pros like Caine and Martin could weaponize. Caine’s gentleman grifter vs. Martin’s gleeful trickster is pure cinematic joy of the kind that’s grown incredibly rare.

Both men will be discussed for centuries. Watch and learn.

Lowlights:

The film’s humor is very much of its time, so if that bumps you, you may miss that the story is in on the joke and chooses to have fun with it. You should, too. And if slapstick isn’t your thing, you may be a soulless monster — but where it appears here, it shines.

After all, it IS called Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Verdict:

In 1988, the twist ending felt impossible. Today, it feels inevitable — which might be the real con. This movie gets the last laugh not just on its characters, but on us.

Hall Pass: GRANTED (IN PERPETUITY AND WITH DISTINCTION)

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Barbarian (2022)

The cleaning fee was the least of her worries.

Starring: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long
Director: Zach Cregger
Where to Watch: Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime

Synopsis:

A young woman (Georgina Campbell) checks into an Airbnb on a rainy Detroit night, only to find it already occupied by a suspicious-looking Bill Skarsgård. Is he friend or foe? Is there a killer on the prowl? Yes — but not at all in the way you expect. What begins as a tight, claustrophobic thriller quickly explodes into a series of sharp left turns: each confident, each clever, all collectively exhausting.

Highlights:

The opening act presents as a two-hander between Campbell and Skarsgård that teases our instincts about gender, trust, and danger. You can feel the movie luring us towards the obvious before delighting in yanking the rug out from under its audience. It’s a bold start, promising a film of rare nerve and unpredictability.

Lowlights:

And then… it sprawls. New characters arrive, timelines fracture, and themes elbow for space: poverty and privilege, gentrification and neglect, predation and penance. Each thread is compelling, but in a 102-minute film, they collide more often than they connect. The non-sequential storytelling, while ambitious, creates distortion without commensurate payoff.

It’s like watching three well-staged, loosely connected but tonally incongruous short films, crammed into one runtime.

Verdict:

Barbarian is fascinating right up until it isn’t. It wants to expose the hidden rot of Detroit’s alleged underbelly—urban, social, and psychological—but instead winds up gnawing on its own leg for the last hour. The first act is a small masterpiece of tension and misdirection. The rest feels like an idea board come to life.

I admire its aim, just not where and how it landed.

Hall Pass: PROVISIONAL (ACHING TO RELENT)

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Late Night with the Devil (2023)

Network TV goes to hell — and takes the audience with it.

Starring: David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss
Directors: Cameron & Colin Cairnes
Where to Watch: Shudder, AMC+, Apple TV

Synopsis:

It’s Halloween night, 1977. Talk show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) is clawing for ratings and credibility in the long shadow of Johnny Carson. In a burst of inspiration and desperation, he stages a live séance on national television. What follows is a haunting spectacle of the supernatural and the superego — and in a world where Jimmy Fallon exists, it also feels disturbingly plausible.

Highlights:

The film nails its 1970s TV aesthetic so precisely that it could pass for recovered network footage. Dastmalchian gives a career-defining performance — Jack Delroy is part showman, part charlatan, part victim of his own ambition — and I found myself wishing there were an actual show catalog to binge. The first act is so convincing you almost forget you’re watching fiction, and the second act deepens the illusion, turning the behind-the-scenes footage into a genuinely unsettling live-action character study.

Lowlights:

After such a sterling buildup, it would be hard for any film to stick the landing. It’s not that this one doesn’t — it’s that the groundwork is so good, the ending feels almost beside the point. The worst thing about this film is also one of its best: it makes you wish the show never ended.

No offense to Zach Cregger, but bro — this is how it’s done.

Verdict:

Late Night With the Devil builds a world so tangible that when it finally tips into the supernatural, it feels like watching history unfold in real time. It’s a clever, unsettling reminder that pop culture has always been—and always will be—both a blessing and a curse.

Hall Pass: GRANTED (AND WINNING THE TIMESLOT)

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This week’s Hall Monitor brought you three tales of performance and deception: can these con men, showmen, and film-men successfully convince us they’re in control of it all?

YOU be the judge.