Zalfa Assaf

Among the now-showing new releases at Grand Cinemas, The Get Out is an action thriller directed by Derrick Borte, starring Russell Crowe, Luke Evans, Aaron Paul, Teresa Palmer and Nina Dobrev.

Russell Crowe plays Manco, a nightclub owner who is ready to leave his dangerous past behind and retire with his girlfriend. But when masked gunmen rob him, leaving cartel money in the balance, the life he thought he was leaving suddenly closes in around him. At the same time, Joe Carver, played by Luke Evans, arrives with an interest in buying the club, adding another uncertain element to an already volatile situation.

The film builds its tension around a simple reversal: Manco is not fighting to enter the criminal world, but to get out of it. Every attempt to secure his future instead draws him deeper into a web of deception, power and survival.

Borte keeps the direction focused on the characters and the escalating complications rather than turning the film into a heavily stylized action piece. The result is a straightforward thriller that allows tension, action and occasional dry humor to emerge from the increasingly unpredictable situations.

Crowe gives Manco a restrained, weary presence that suits a man who has grown tired of the life he once built. Luke Evans brings a different energy as the enigmatic newcomer, while the surrounding characters gradually turn Manco’s planned retirement into a much more dangerous proposition.

The film’s main weakness lies less in its premise than in the number of threads competing for attention. Some of its ideas and character detours could have been developed more tightly, but the central storyline remains clear and engaging, carried by Crowe’s performance and the steady escalation of danger.

The Get Out does not attempt to reinvent the action thriller. Its appeal comes from the tension between a man determined to change his life and a world determined to keep him where he is.

For Manco, retirement should have been an escape. Instead, it becomes the beginning of his most dangerous fight.

When Grief Becomes Revenge

Mel-Christ Hachem

Among the now-showing new releases at Grand Cinemas, The Rivals of Amziah King stands out as an unusual 2-hour-and-10-minute crime drama that gradually transforms from a story of family and belonging into a tense journey of loss, investigation and revenge.

Directed by Andrew Patterson, the film stars Matthew McConaughey as Amziah King, a charismatic beekeeper, honey farmer and bluegrass musician living in rural Oklahoma. His life changes when Kateri, his former foster daughter, returns after years apart. Played by Angelina LookingGlass, Kateri finds in Amziah not only a connection to her past but a new sense of family and purpose.

Patterson carefully builds this relationship before turning the story in a darker direction. Threats surrounding Amziah’s honey business expose a world of rivalry, sabotage and betrayal, and the warm atmosphere of the opening gradually gives way to danger.

Then the film changes completely,when Amziah is taken out of the story, Kateri becomes its driving force. Her grief turns into a search for the truth, and that search develops into a determined pursuit of those responsible. LookingGlass handles the transformation with restraint, allowing Kateri to move from a guarded young woman into someone increasingly willing to fight for what Amziah left behind.

McConaughey gives Amziah a magnetic warmth that makes his absence felt long after he leaves the narrative. Beneath the humor and larger-than-life personality is a man whose greatest strength lies in the relationships he creates. His influence therefore continues through Kateri, who carries what she learned from him into her own fight.

The film also shifts confidently between family drama, crime thriller, modern Western and musical Americana. This gives it an unmistakable personality, although the constant movement between genres occasionally makes the narrative feel less focused than its strongest moments deserve.Yet the structural change is ultimately what gives the film its emotional weight. This is not simply a story about what happens to Amziah. It is about what happens to Kateri after losing him.

Her search for those responsible becomes more than revenge. It becomes a way of protecting the world Amziah built and proving that his influence did not disappear with him.

The Rivals of Amziah King begins with a man who has created a world around himself. It ends with a young woman forced to decide what she will do when that world is taken away.

Sometimes the person who teaches you how to survive becomes the reason you refuse to stop fighting.

Mel-Christ Hachem

Currently screening at Grand Cinemas Lebanon, Spider-Man: Brand New Day takes Peter Parker into a new chapter shaped less by the scale of the multiverse than by the loneliness left behind when the world forgets who he is. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the film brings Tom Holland back as Peter Parker in a story that places identity, isolation and the price of being Spider-Man at its centre.

Four years after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter has deliberately erased himself from the lives and memories of those he loves. Now living alone and fighting crime full-time, he has made Spider-Man his entire existence. But the pressure of that life triggers a startling physical transformation he may not be able to control, while a powerful new threat emerges in New York — one that could endanger the city and the people Peter still cares about.

The Man Behind the Mask

What gives Brand New Day its emotional weight is its decision to begin with Peter Parker’s absence rather than Spider-Man’s power.

Tom Holland plays a Peter who is older, more isolated and marked by the consequences of a choice made to protect everyone else. The humour remains part of his character, but it now exists beside a greater sense of weariness and emotional restraint. Holland gives Peter a maturity that makes his solitude feel less like a temporary consequence and more like a life he has gradually accepted.

Zendaya, returning as MJ, remains at the heart of that emotional tension. Peter’s separation from the people he loves changes the meaning of their relationship: the question is no longer simply whether they can be together, but what survives of a bond when memory itself has been taken away.

A Different Kind of Spider-Man

Taking over from Jon Watts, who directed Holland’s previous three Spider-Man films, Destin Daniel Cretton brings the character closer to street level and to the personal consequences of Peter’s choices. The film retains the speed, scale and visual energy expected from Spider-Man, but its most effective moments come when spectacle gives way to character.

The city becomes more than a backdrop for action. It is the space in which Peter has chosen to disappear into his role, turning his responsibility into both a purpose and a refuge.

The presence of Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle / The Punisher, alongside Jacob Batalon and Mark Ruffalo, expands Peter’s world while keeping the story connected to the wider Marvel universe.

Between Power and Vulnerability

The most compelling transformation in Brand New Day is therefore not simply physical. It is emotional.

Peter has already sacrificed his place in the lives of the people he loves. Now he must confront what that sacrifice has made of him. The mysterious threat facing New York gives this internal conflict a physical dimension, turning the superhero story into a question of control, identity and the limits of the body.

And this is where the film reconnects with the enduring strength of Spider-Man.

Behind the suit, the powers and the spectacular movement through New York remains a young man trying to live with the consequences of doing what he believes is right.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day does not simply ask what Spider-Man can become next. It asks what Peter Parker has left to become.

The world may have forgotten Peter Parker, but he has not forgotten the people he lost. His new beginning, then, is not an escape from the past, but an attempt to discover who he can be while carrying it.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is currently screening at Grand Cinemas Lebanon.

“He asked nothing for himself, so God gave him everything.”

The docu-drama “Patriarch Elias – God Will Provide”, dedicated to the life and legacy of Patriarch Elias Peter Howayek (1843–1931), will officially be released at Grand Cinemas Lebanon on August 20.

With a running time of 1 hour and 15 minutes, the film traces the extraordinary journey of Patriarch Elias, from his humble childhood in the village of Halat to his final days.

Set against the backdrop of the Holy Mass, the film follows the Patriarch as he reflects on the defining moments of his life. Through dramatic reenactments, interviews with religious speakers and historians, and factual archival footage, the docu-drama explores the story of a religious and national figure remembered as the architect of Greater Lebanon.

At the heart of the film is Patriarch Elias’s unwavering faith and trust in Divine Providence, which shaped both his personal journey and his role in a pivotal chapter of the nation’s history.

Nicolas Hannah Daniel portrays Patriarch Elias, with Kamil Youssef and Charbel Nacouzi also starring.

The film is directed by Rony Moukarzel, with Patrcik Nacouzi serving as Executive Producer. The screenplay is written by Souzie Khoury Hanna, while Fady Chmata is the Director of Photography.

“Patriarch Elias -God Will Provide” opens at Grand Cinemas Lebanon on August 20.