Wondering what happen to Stephen Amell and Alexander Ludwig after wrapping up their separately widely popular television series? I mean, what is there to do after playing a superhero and a king? Apparently, the answer is to star in a series about a local independent wrestling league, as the two bring us Heels. Amell and Ludwig play brothers, Jack and Ace Spade, sons of a local legendary wrestler (played by David James Elliot), carrying on their family business, the Duffy Wrestling League (DWL), of playing out scripted wrestling matches in a small town in Georgia. Amell plays the heel, or villain, while Ludwig acts as the face, or hero of the promotion. Despite their bond, the brothers find themselves at odds over the direction of the wrestling promotion, as they vie for national attention. Outside their ring, their lives are just as messy, as their personal relationships also face scrutiny by their very public personas. Rounding out the cast are Alison Luff as Jack’s wife, Staci, Mary McCormack as Willie Day, Jack’s business partner, Allen Maldonado as Rooster, a star performer for the DWL, and Chris Bauer, a former member of the DWL who went on to find national success.

This was a series that I was very excited to see, and it did not disappoint. Dare I say, this is the most realistic representation of what it must be like for an independent wrestling league. An aspect that I enjoyed was the portrayal of the difficulty of taking on all the tasks of trying to promote the business. In every episode, we watch Jack struggle to make his family legacy a success, usually neglecting other parts, particularly people, in his life as he does whatever it tasks to make a good show. This neglect is a key caveat to the story, and it is during these periods that we see the presence that Luff has, as her character challenges her husband. Prior to this series, I knew nothing of the actress, but she is clearly not a newcomer to the profession. With relative ease, she contends with Amell, often acting as the voice of reason for a stubborn Jack. That is not to say that she isn’t afraid to call him on his crap, which she does often. Most notably in the season finale (Double Turn), when she confronts her husband over her concerns that he beginning to become too much like the person that he pretends to be.

The hunted vs. the hunters. Now here is a premise that has seen its fair share of movies. Ever since Jean Claude Van Dame’s rendition in Hard Target, filmmakers have been coming up with new and sometimes cliches version of the idea of a man being hunted for sport. Personally, I’d rather just get my fix of this idea by reading Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game. It’s just hard to imagine that there is any unique way left to come at this idea. Apex tries, but it falls short of the desired effect. In the case of this film, they bring in action veteran Bruce Willis to serve as the prey. Given his pedigree, you’d expect him to deliver one-liners while dispatching folks in creative manners. He delivers on the one-liners, but as far as the creative kills, he actually isn’t the person doing the most of the damage. In fact, Willis barely rates above a bystander in this film. I suppose it was ambitious to expect Willis to be duking it out like he did back in his Die Hard days; I mean, the man is in his mid-sixties now. However, if he wasn’t going to be the agent of chaos, why even bother putting him in the movie at all?

I suppose the answer to that question is obvious. When it comes to action films, Willis is quite possibly one of the world’s the biggest draws. His record speaks for itself. However, if I may be so bold, I must say that underutilization of him only serves to tarnish said record. For the amount of action, we got from him, they could have put anyone in that role without it doing any damage to the film’s quality. In fact, they have done better to use a less known talent in order to avoid the disappoint that I surely felt.

"This wasn't a game of cops and robbers. We were playing for keeps. It boiled down to a duel between me and an unknown fellow waiting up in the rocks or struggling on ahead of me. I never had the slightest doubt that he was there and that I would find him. But I didn't like it. It was all wrong somehow."

John Sturges has directed some of the biggest classics of his era. He became known as a huge action director and knew how to put to together large and powerful ensemble casts. Among his classic films you'd find The Magnificent Seven  (1960) with Yule Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Eli Wallach, and Robert Vaughn. There's Ice Station Zebra (1968) with Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, and Patrick McGoohan. You've likely seen The Great Escape (1963) with Steve McQueen once again on his famous German motorcycle. The film also stars James Garner, Charles Bronson once again, and Jurassic Park's Sir Richard Attenborough. What many fans don't know is that he was also an expert in the 1950's film noir films, and one of the greatest, if lesser known than his action films, is The Capture. The film has almost been lost to time, but thanks to a pretty solid restoration and release by The Film Detective, you know have a chance to see the more artistic and intimate side of John Sturges.

Superhost is a not-so-flattering social commentary on the youth of today who seem to be driven more by the amount of likes and subscribers they have than the actual human interactions they encounter in the course of a day. Whether it’s Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or any number of platforms you can think of, it seems people have just become obsessed with seeking the approval of “followers” instead of taking stock in the friends they have in their “real” social structure. The pandemic, of course, doesn’t help any of this, as it seems every week there is some new dance or challenge people are doing in the name of clicks. Also recently it seems suicides and murder-suicides have been occurring more with these “social media influencers”. Maybe it is just the old man in me coming out, but I look at the social media culture and wonder if man has reached his peak and we are all simply on a steady decline from this point forward.

The rant aside, Superhost is a film that was inevitable, and I’m willing to bet that we’ll be seeing more of these films that seem to want to be a cautionary tale of sorts to those looking for social media popularity, that it comes at a cost to yourself and to others, and in the end you really have nothing to show for it (with the rare exception of those who do monetize their viewership). When we meet Claire (Sara Canning) and Teddy (Osric Chau), they are a somewhat happy couple who have their own travellog, “Superhost”, where they travel around and find new spots for weekend getaways and review them.  Lately it seems their fandom has started to fizzle, and they need something that will get their subscribers excited and bring more views to their channel. Immediately it’s kind of hard to sympathize with this couple; after all, they are simply living the dream, right?  Stay at posh locations and comment about them; literally that is the extent of the work these two seem to put into this. Teddy wants to use the platform as a way to broadcast his proposal to Claire. It seems sweet, of course, but again we see him using the site as a way to simply over-share with the world.