Office Romance plus Short Takes on other cinematic topics

This Ain’t No “Third-Rate Romance”*

(but there may be some of those lurking in the shadows here)

*From a 1975 song by the Amazing Rhythm Aces.

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

        Office Romance (Ol Parker)   rated R   114 min.

            

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

WHAT HAPPENS: Jackie Cruz (Jennifer Lopez) is the work-driven CEO of AirCruz, a growing airline founded by her father, Captain Jack Cruz (Edward James Olmos), so she constantly has to answer to her Board and Dad, with frequent accusations she’s not fit for the job.  Yet, she arranges with a honcho at the massive Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport to acquire a large number of gates previously promised to Falcon, another airline, leading to their CEO, William Butten (Roger Bart), to sue her with the accusation the switch came about due to her sexual availability.  Jackie says she’s had no sex for years, focusing her entire life on her job, but when it’s deposition time her cut-throat lawyer, Peter Vance (Bradley Whitford), becomes temporarily incapacitated due to choking on a big piece of sausage in a breakfast burrito so she turns to new hire Brit Daniel Blanchflower (Brett Goldstein)—who’s in the U.S. to help his wayward sister, Lizzy (Jodie Whittaker), jailed for cutting a man’s head off with a machete, although her brother’s shown his skills by getting her execution sentence reduced to life; he surprises Jackie with his expertise, then embarrasses himself by getting an erection when shaking hands with her in her office.  That transgression’s forgiven, soon they’re off together to another deposition in the Dominican Republic where the office’s iron-clad policy of no employee fraternization’s put aside as their mutual attraction’s made manifest in bed.  When they return to New Jersey headquarters they do their best to keep their affair secret, but there are many suspicions, especially from Jackie's chief assistant, Sydney Bloom (Betty Gilpin).

 

 It all goes bad for Jackie and Daniel, though, when Falcon Airlines Butten shows her photos taken by his secret spy, Julie Schatz (Amy Sedaris)—posing as a maid at their Caribbean hotel—of Jackie and Daniel in romantic embrace undercutting her assertion of no sex interfering with business, so she’s prepared to call a big press conference to resign as CEO, sell her airline to Falcon.  ⇒Daniel, somehow overcoming a traffic jam in the Holland Tunnel to arrive at the event, saves the day by declaring his love for Jackie, convincing her on the spot not to step down or sell, and condemning the no-romantic-business-attractions in their company's HR policy.  As this all quickly winds down, we find Jackie and Daniel are set to be married while the credits run parallel to funny confessions to HR Director George Dudek (Tony Hale) from a number of AirCruz employees about their sexual encounters with each other despite the previous corporate no-hanky-panky policy.⇐  I’ve tried to keep this section reasonably short, but more plot details (well, a few more) can be found at this site.

 

SO WHAT? My current caution-about-contracting-a-deadly-virus-in-a-crowded-movie-theater policy (even as it gets severely challenged by fare such as Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day which I really want to see but know that “crowded” would clearly be the case with something that’s already piled up $44.5 million just since last weekend [worldwide $98,2 million] so each showing must be quite full) is getting to be a problem in finding some really interesting stuff on streaming for me to enjoy, you to enjoy reading what I have to say about it, so I keep hoping I can maintain that marvelous streak of 6-in-a-row postings with a 4-stars subject of analysis.  I thought I’d be safely in that realm last weekend when I came across Tuner (Daniel Roher) with its solid CCAL support (Rotten Tomatoes positives 94%, Metacritic 75% average score) which has been out since May 22, 2026 so when various Internet sources said it’s available via Fandango at Home I went through the tedious process of adding this platform to my Roku device, then found all I could do is preorder it ($24.99!) in anticipation of a streaming release date yet to be determined, so I will have it for you at some point, though I don’t know when.  Considerable recent digging, though, has turned up a couple of intriguing possibilities for me to watch this weekend, so we’ll see how it all works out.  

 

 Last weekend, though, not much was popping up (especially in the 4-stars range) until I stumbled upon Office Romance which gave me hope for positive possibilities based on my interest in the lead actors (Lopez from many past appearances, Goldstein for his successful work on Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso series [2020-‘23; new season scheduled for August 5, 2026] for which he won 2 Primetime Emmys as Outstanding Supporting Actor; he also co-wrote this current screenplay along with Joe Kelly [a co-developer of Ted Lasso]), along with the desire to spend some time with a silly romcom to help take my mind off the daily doses of unbelievable idiocy coming from the Trump administration.  I admit the strong negatives from the OCCU (details below) gave me pause, but with little else to turn to I plowed ahead anyway, was generally pleased with what I saw, despite the easy predictability of the situations along with some dangling plot details (How did Daniel get out of that Holland Tunnel mess so quickly?).  There’s nothing new nor surprising here (which ultimately undercut my 4-stars quest), but it is a most pleasant diversion—including British and American takes on the word “cunt.”

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: You'll find Office Romance to be a streaming-only presentation so head to Netflix if you’re a subscriber or are willing to pay $8.99 for a month of access (with ads) or $19.99 (no ads), after which you can stick around or opt out.  This is one of those situations (not too infrequent) where I’m considerably more supportive than the OCCU, with Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at a near-dismissive 48%, Metacritic average score at a surprisingly-higher 52%.  Among those who join in with my response, though, is Stephanie Zacharek (MC 70, same as my 3½ of 5 stars) of TIME who says: “And the truth is, you don’t even have to like Lopez to enjoy Office Romance, which breezes along on a current of enjoyable gags and reasonably lively banter. […] Office Romance imagines other possibilities, and recognizes the reality that people very often fall in love against their better judgment—and it can happen in the workplace as easily as anywhere else. To what degree can we, or should we, regulate the vagaries of the human heart? That’s a bigger question than ‘How does Jennifer Lopez get her skin to glow like that?’ though you could file them both under Eternal Mysteries.”  Yet, more along the lines of the critical community’s overall response is Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter (MC 40): “Regardless of whether we believe in Jackie and Daniel’s connection, the script dictates that they do — and so, after the pro forma third-act crisis, it all comes to a head with a grand romantic gesture. But here, too, we’re reminded that the truest romance Office Romance knows is with the office. In this universe, ‘I love you’ is followed immediately by ‘I want to work with you,’ and then some unearned blather about how when you really think about it, your employees are like your family. For some, I guess, that could qualify as a happy ending. Myself, I’d rather go back to not dreaming of labor.”  

 

 You might choose to explore it (title does say it all), but I found it charming, quite funny at times, and certainly a visual treat with both of the lead actors.  To wrap up, here’s my usual Musical Metaphor, this time Bob Dylan’s "I Want You" (1966 Blonde on Blonde album) which I take directly from the movie's soundtrack (where it’s sung by someone I don’t know so I retreat to the original) which speaks directly to the lead characters’ unbridled desire for each other: “I want you, so bad / Honey, I want you.”  Maybe you’ll want to watch this movie, maybe you won’t, yet if you don’t just remember the filmmakers’ lament: “But it’s not that way / I wasn’t born to lose you,” third-rate romance or not.

   

SHORT TAKES

                          

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

I’ll go full-circle back to the Amazing Rhythm Aces because that link I put in the beginning is from a performance for PBS TV’s Austin City Limits; I was in the audience for this band at one of those tapings in around 1975 or ’76, but I don’t know if what we see here is what I attended or is the group singing again at a later date.  I don’t locate myself in this audience, but if you do please let me know.

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

 

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

          

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

            

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 63,086.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site): 

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War plus Short Takes on Propeller One-Way Night Coach and other cinematic topics

   Bullets Fly And So Does a Kid

in Love With Aviation

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

                       Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War

                     (Andrew Bernstein)   rated R   105 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

WHAT HAPPENS: Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) tries to retire from the CIA but is encouraged by friend/Deputy Director James Greer (Wendell Pierce) to take on one last project, meeting Nigel Cooke (Douglas Hodge) in Dubai to retrieve some crucial intel, so Ryan’s off to the Middle East (although not having to duck U.S., Israeli, and/or Iranian missiles/drones), accompanied by Mike November (Michael Kelly).  Ryan meets with Cooke who gives him nothing before being killed by agents of Liam Crown (Max Beesley), a rogue former Black Ops agent who has a plan of staging supposed terrorist actions in order to convince powerful groups such as the CIA and UK’s MI6 to restart banned counter-terrorism groups such as Project Starling.  Ryan and November are then taken into custody by MI6 officer Emma Marlow (Sienna Miller).  Crown tells Greer he’ll kill Ryan unless what supposedly was delivered by Cooke is returned to Crown; Greer comes to London, meets with Ryan, all determine Crown’s revived Starling group plans to blow up Tower Bridge.  CIA Director Elizabeth Wright (Betty Gabriel) also comes to London but is killed by a Crown car bomb.  Ryan, November, and Marlow go back to Dubai in pursuit of Crown.  ⇒This all results in a huge firefight with Marlow being injured as help arrives from Greer; Crown’s wounded, Ryan kills him.  Greer becomes CIA Director, recommends Ryan be confirmed as Deputy Director.⇐  If you want more plot details (if so, maybe you're desperate for this to somehow make sense), please go here.

SO WHAT? This posting adds another 4-stars rating to what I’ve reviewed since Apex (Baltasar Kormákur) on April 29 of this year—not … Ghost War of course but due to Propeller … much farther below.  Regarding this Jack Ryan episode, I’ll admit it’s been quite a while since I’ve encountered this character—going way back to The Hunt for Red October (John McTiernan, 1990; Alec Baldwin as Ryan), Patriot Games (Philip Noyce, 1992; Harrison Ford), Clear and Present Danger (Noyce, 1994; Ford), The Sum of All Fears (Phil Alden Robinson, 2002; Ben Affleck), Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (Kenneth Branagh, 2014; Chris Pine), but I missed the entire Jack Ryan Amazon Prime Video TV series (2018-2023) with Krasinski (extensive details on this whole franchise here)—having put more attention on the James Bond, Jason Bourne, Mission Impossible movies (though I haven’t yet had connection with 2025's Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning [Christopher McQuarrie]).

 

 I may have understood more from … Ghost War had I seen the Amazon TV series because this plot seems to follow up on aspects of those shows with some current movie characters as carry-overs from Prime’s stories.  What doesn’t carry over very well, for me and many in the critical community (details below), is much of a coherent plot featuring characters better defined for those of us not conversant with Ryan’s recent career on Prime; instead we get a car chase that goes on way too long and even-longer filler scenes of people shooting at each other with assault rifles to try to stretch about 20 minutes of useful dialogue into something around 1¾ hours long (well, a little shorter thanks to the usual barrage of final credits appropriate to such computer-enhanced fare).  I looked back at my ... Shadow Recruit review to see what slightly-intrigued me more about that much-earlier entry in the franchise; once I waded through my horrible layout approach from those days (you’d think I was paying for photos given how few I used, resulting in cognitive assaults with those seemingly-eternal paragraphs), I found I had lots of problems with that one too, but at least the star power of the cast essentially made it more interesting, so I’ll just be honest about my boredom with … Ghost War, not even go to 3 stars this time, though viewers who just like a lot of action/want to see marvelous imagery of Dubai and London would surely rate it higher (at least I didn’t have to directly pay for it either, as our annual fee to Amazon Prime does bring in loads of nice discounts).

(I’ve borrowed another dismissal from someone else for this photo.)

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: While … Ghost War had a minor theatrical presence it’s mostly available on streaming (I can’t imagine it selling many tickets after an curiosity-driven opening weekend) where it’s free to Amazon Prime Video subscribers (also free for 30 days, then $13.98 monthly if you want more).  Certainly, the OCCU wouldn’t encourage spending much time on this movie as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are a measly 43% and the Metacritic average score down to 38%.  The Guardian’s (UK) Jesse Hassenger (MC 40) is typical of those who found little redeeming value in this tale: “Diehard fans of the show might find more enjoyment in seeing Krasinski, Pierce, Kelly and Betty Gabriel back again, or adding the believably hard-bitten Miller to the mix. The movie does set up potential for a continuing movie franchise. Mostly, though, Jack Ryan: Ghost War feels like a sad state of affairs for the world’s dads (and dads at heart), who deserve to see airport-novel espionage brought to less chintzy life.”  Still, there are some more supportive such as Brandon Zachary (MC 60) of ScreenRant: “Ghost War works best when it has some good action going on. While it's never necessarily revolutionary, there is enough grit and grime to the sequences that make them land well in the moment. Likewise, the dialogue-heavy scenes are all shot, performed, and cut with an effective (and unshowy) edge.” And, while we’re in ScreenRant here’s Antonella Gugliersi with 8 reasons why Krasinski’s the best Jack Ryan yet based on the TV series, an opinion shared by Liam Gaughan of Collider who also references the previous movie Ryans (I’ll admit that Krasinski’s portrayal is the best thing about … Ghost War).

 

 So, why did I choose to watch/review this mess?  First, I’m trying to honor my intention of focusing now on 2026 releases, with few others seeming to be much better; second, I had good experiences with Ryan movies long ago so I hoped this one would be worth my time; third, there have been some previous OCCU duds I found quite watchable so I took a chance.  Maybe next week I’ll hit paydirt again.  In the meantime, here’s my usual review-ending Musical Metaphor, Johnny Rivers’ "Secret Agent Man" (much shorter version used with opening of CBS TV show Secret Agent [1964-’66; this version on Rivers’ 1966 album … And I Know You Wanna Dance]); I’ll also give you a fan video using the song with shots from that TV show (it may be more enjoyable than … Ghost War).

             

SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)

                

    Propeller One-Way Night Coach (John Travolta)  

                         Not Rated/TV-PG  61 min.

Here’s the trailer:

Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning far above.

 Even on hiatus last week I still had time to see Travolta’s directorial debut as he adapted his 1997 novella (of the same name) about a mother, Helen (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett), and her 8-year-old son, Jeff (Clark Shotwell), traveling in 1962 from NYC to LA in her desperate quest to break into the movies.  Due to budget restrictions, instead of taking a straight-through jet they travel on a propeller plane making several stops along the way allowing for Helen to chat up various fellow passengers (while downing her Manhattans) as Jeff charms various stewardesses, especially Doris (Ella Bleu Travolta [John’s daughter; other Travoltas occupy various minor roles]).  I’m trying to keep these comments truly short (with this week's lengthy movie titles already taking up extraordinary space) so I’ll just note ⇒Jeff ultimately becomes a pilot on the NYC-LA route, he married Doris (despite her being 21 when they met), even as Helen later ends up as an acting instructor at the Pasadena Playhouse⇐; if you want more plot details, go here.  I found this to be marvelously charming, easy to follow, wonderfully illustrative of the director/actor’s (a small role at the end) lifelong-love of flying even while the OCCU wasn’t overly impressed: RT positives 55%, Metacritic average score 49%.

 

 One critic in active support, however, is my local guru Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, MC 100% (although I had to get a link to his review in the Houston Chronicle because the SFC suddenly wants me to set up an account even though we have one in my wife’s name and I don’t want to be charged twice for a subscription): “Everybody has memories of times and places in the past that mean something to them. But it takes art and skill to take what’s personal and make it meaningful to someone who has never had a similar experience. [¶] This is the notable success of […] Travolta’s first film as a director.”  More appropriate to the critical consensus is Brian Tallerico in RogerEbert.com (MC 50): “It might be a case of Travolta actually being too close to this project for so much of his life. He can feel the wonder in its beats in a way that makes him overlook the need to create that for viewers.”  You can choose for yourself, even as I encourage you to listen more to me and LaSalle.  I’ll take the Musical Metaphor from the soundtrack, "Come Fly With Me," a 1958 hit for Frank Sinatra from his album that year named for the song.  You can find the movie via streaming free to all Apple TV subscribers or watch for 7 days free (then $12.99 monthly).

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

 My thanks to long-time friend/blog contributor Richard J. Parker who notes Steven Spielberg’s new sci-fi film, Disclosure Day, debuts in theaters this weekend (6/12/2026) including in IMAX and some additional 70mm locations like this one in San Antonio, TX (it was shot in 35mm, then blown up to the larger size for some venues).  When it finally gets to streaming, I’ll be anxious to see/report on it.

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two guys in the dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

          

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

         

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 63,086.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):