December is an unusually quiet month for Max, except for all of the holiday films. The rest of the new movies on Max are pretty sparse. But a true cinema lover can always find something good to watch in Max’s lineup of movies from Warner Bros. Pictures and a few films on loan from other studios.
This month, our picks for the three underrated movies on Max that you need to watch in December include one of Matt Damon’s oddest leading roles, a tense modern war drama, and a legal battle with far-reaching implications.
The Informant! (2009)
The Informant! is based on a true story, but the reality of the situation probably wasn’t as funny as director Steven Soderbergh’s take on it. Matt Damon completely sheds any trace of Jason Bourne or any of his previous roles to portray Mark Whitacre, a ridiculous executive at Archer Daniels Midland who blows the whistle on his own company to the FBI.
FBI Special Agents Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Robert Hendon (Joel McHale) put Whitacre to work by having him wear a wire and gather evidence. Whitacre’s persona is so goofy that it’s shocking when evidence emerges that he may be guilty of some serious financial crimes of his own.
Watch The Informant on Max.
Eye in the Sky (2016)
Eye in the Sky was one of the first movies to embrace the reality of drone warfare in the fight against terror. When a terrorist group in Kenya is on the verge of committing an attack on civilians, officers in the United Kingdom, including Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren), Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman), and Major Howard Webb (John Heffernan) debate whether they should authorize a drone strike on the target.
However, the finger on the trigger belongs to 2nd Lieutenant Steve Watts (Breaking Bad‘s Aaron Paul), a drone pilot stationed in the United States. Whatever happens, any bloodshed will be on Watts’ hands, but who’s willing to make the life or death call?
Watch Eye in the Sky on Max.
Denial (2016)
The premise of Denial seems just as timely now as when it was released seven years ago. The film is based on the true story of Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz), who was sued in 1996 by author David Irving (Timothy Spall) over accusations that she unjustly maligned him as a Holocaust denier in her books.
To counter Irving’s claims, Lipstadt has to rely on her lawyers, Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) and Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott), to prove that what she wrote was true. Yet when Irving continues to distort the facts of the Holocaust on the witness stand, Lipstadt feels that she is being prevented by her own legal team from speaking out in her defense in this high-stakes case.
Watch Denial on Max.
