It’s almost the official start of summer, and Watch With Us hasn’t stepped a foot outside. How can anyone with all the great movies available to watch on streaming on Amazon Prime?
This weekend, we recommend you check out the following three underrated movies on Amazon Prime Video. They’re all entertaining in different ways and don’t require anything beyond a Prime subscription and your valuable time.
She-Devil is a comedy starring ‘80s sitcom star Roseanne and Oscar winner Meryl Streep, Ronin is an action-thriller with Robert De Niro and De-Lovely is a biopic about music legend Cole Porter.
‘Ronin’ (1998)Those craving more spy thrillers after watching Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning should check out Ronin, a criminally underrated action movie from the late ‘90s. IRA agent Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) recruits a team of mercenaries to retrieve a mysterious suitcase that the Russian mafia desperately wants. They’re successful, but a double-cross by one of them sends them all down a path of violence and murder. Will any of them make it out alive? And what’s in that suitcase, anyway?
Directed by John Frankenheimer, Ronin is a classic action-thriller in the mold of Bullitt and To Live and Die in L.A. As Sam, one of the mercenaries recruited by Deirdre, Robert De Niro has one of his best post-Goodfellas roles ever. The film’s terrific supporting cast, which includes Sean Bean, Jonathan Pryce and Stellan Skarsgård, stands out, but the main highlight is a terrific car chase that occurs midway through the film. It’s tense, fast and brutal, and puts any of the races in the Fast and the Furious movies to shame.
Ronin is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
‘De-Lovely’ (2004)Thanks to the cult comedy Walk Hard, movie biopics about musicians tend to get a bad rap, but some are worth a watch simply because of their reassuring predictability. De-Lovely is one of those movies, a standard dramatization of the life of Cole Porter that’s elevated by Kevin Kline’s energetic performance as the famous composer.
The movie focuses on Porter’s unconventional marriage to Linda Lee Thomas (Ashley Judd), a bohemian divorcee who’s charmed by Porter’s flattery and celebrity status. They are an ideal match, except for two problems: Porter is gay, and he frequently indulges in extramarital affairs with other men. His unfaithfulness hurts Linda, especially when a tabloid magazine blackmails them with photographic evidence that, if published, could ruin Porter’s career. Can their marriage survive this scandal? And can Linda love a man who can’t be faithful to her?
De-Lovely isn’t terribly accurate, and you can guess almost every plot point without even looking at Porter’s Wikipedia page. But the film is polished and solidly directed by Irwin Winkler, and Kline and Judd have enough chemistry together to sell the Porters’ genuine affection for each other. A big bonus is you get to hear some of Porter’s classic songs performed by such singers as Alanis Morissette, Natalie Cole, Diana Krall and Robbie Williams.
De-Lovely is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
‘She-Devil’ (1989)
Ruth Patchett (Roseanne Barr) is your typical dissatisfied suburban housewife who has 2 ungrateful kids, a boring accountant husband and a life that is as drab as her wardrobe. But when her hubby leaves her to be with a famous romance novelist, Mary Fisher (Meryl Streep), Ruth loses it — in a good way. She enacts an elaborate plan to get back at her unfaithful ex while also becoming the successful, independent woman she always wanted to be.
She-Devil is a surprisingly sly comedy that argues revenge is a cold dish worth serving. It’s a kick to see Ruth slowly make her rival Mary’s life miserable from afar, and it’s even more entertaining to see Mary’s picture-perfect life crumble as she’s forced to do the same domestic duties that imprisoned Ruth. Streep and Barr are perhaps the unlikeliest comedy duo in film history, but their oddball pairing works wonders here.
She-Devil is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
