UNFORGETTABLE Review — Memorable? Not so much

I’m not gonna lie. There will be no awards waiting for this one — not even a Razzie, because it’s not bad enough for that. Still, you might say it’s so bad it’s good fun.

Sixty years ago they would have put Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in the lead rolls, and we would have heard about rousing catfights both on and off the screen. (That’s a plug for FX’s fabulous Feud: Bette and Joan — a limited series you should binge this very weekend, if you haven’t seen it)

Here it’s 2017, Katherine Heigl is Tessa, a WASPy ex-wife who will stop at nothing to get her family back, and Rosario Dawson is Julia, the new fiance with a secretwho’s standing in Tessa’s way. The men in this movie are irrelevant — it’s really all about a girl fight that leads to a violent showdown.

Probably best seen with your girlfriends after cocktails. It’s glossy cinematic junk food that falls in the “guilty pleasure”category.

Rated R

1 Hour 41 Minutes

THE PROMISE Review — Makes a lasting impression

The Promise, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of Unforgettable. It will stay with you for a long time and encourage you to never forget.

As it should. Americans don’t know nearly enough about the 1915 Armenian Genocide in Turkey. It was brutal, it was devastating, and more than a million men, women and children were killed. We need more films like this that tell their story.

Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, Inside Llewyn Davis) plays an Armenian med student who travels from his small village to study in Istanbul. There he meets up with a beautiful Armenian dancer (the lovely Charlotte Le Bon) and chemistry ignites, even though she’s already involved with an American journalist (Christian Bale).

The love triangle is but a subplot, however, and not quite combustible enough to sustain itself. The film is really about how the victims try to escape and help as many as they possibly can to survive. It’s based on the true story of how hundreds were eventually rescued by the French Navy as they were pushed out of their homes and into the sea.

It never quite makes clear to what “promise” they’re referring, but the flaws can be forgiven for the ambition of the story.

Rated PG-13

2 Hours 14 Minutes

Get times and tickets at Fandango.com.

UNFORGETTABLE Review – THE PROMISE Review — One You’ll Remember, One You Won’t

by Lisa Johnson Mandell