What to watch on Netflix, Foxtel Now, Stan

A FUNNY sometimes tragic doco offering a final goodbye to Robin Williams headlines this week’s streaming list. Here’s what to watch, and what to avoid, on Netflix, Stan and Foxtel Now.

THERE’S no footy this weekend, but there’s plenty of new offerings on Netflix, Stan and Foxtel Now to fill the void.

Here’s what to watch and what to avoid on your streaming services.

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CRAZY RICH ASIANS A CHARMING LAUGH FEST

The one that makes you fondly miss one of the greats

ROBIN WILLIAMS: COME INSIDE MY MIND (M) ****1/2

FOXTEL NOW

This magnificent documentary produced by HBO offers a belated, yet healing way of saying one final goodbye to Robin Williams, taken all too abruptly from us back in 2014.

The life and times of the celebrated actor and stand-up comic is given a straight chronological approach which does not exactly explain the rare nature (and astonishingly quick pace) of his performance genius.

A scene from Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind.

The documentary captures.

However, it does capture his unique and wildly diverse array of talents so very vividly that the absence of some key minor details just does not matter. The choice of footage used to illustrate Williams’ rapid rise from obscurity in the 1970s and evolution as an actor of deceptively wide range is never obvious, and always sublime (a clip of Williams taking over an awards ceremony at the invitation of Jack Nicholson is blindingly funny stuff).

Better still, the doco does not shy away from identifying the demons that plagued Williams away from the spotlight. They were at his shoulder for a lot longer than anyone could have known, including family and friends.

The one where it’s just one guy against many Mexican drug lords

THE INFILTRATOR (MA15+) ****

STAN

Couldn’t get enough of the fine, ferociously precise acting work of Bryan Cranston in that torrid TV series Breaking Bad? Then you’ll be wanting to track down the compelling real-life crime drama.

An utterly gripping true story unfolds in the late 1980s, a period where notorious Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar and his Medellin cartel moved mountains of cocaine into the United States with ease.

Cranston plays Robert Mazur, a US Customs agent based in Florida who went deep undercover as a mobbed-up money launderer to reach the highest echelons of the Medellin’s incredibly secretive operations.

Diane Kruger and Bryan Cranston in The Infiltrator. Picture: Supplied

The one that reboots a classic … and doesn’t give it a kicking

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (PG) ***

FOXTEL NOW

Kind of a sequel. Kind of a reboot. Kind of happy to do its own thing. That’s the wash-up for this frenetic follow-up to the cherished 1995 family adventure gem Jumanji. As everyone should recall, the original movie followed its young characters as they were caught inside a board game come to life.

A generation on, and the stereotypical youths of this tale are now stuck inside a video game come to life. But wait, there’s more (arguably, too much more). All the teens have now been body-swapped into adult avatars.

Which means a nerdy teenage guy will now have the brawny bravado of a Dwayne Johnson. A mousy teenage girl will now have the babe-licious bravado of a Karen Gillan. (Oh, and in the movie’s best jokey twist, a foxy teenage girl will now have the flabby frame of a Jack Black.)

No doubt, this is empty-calorie escapist fun for the most part, even it sometimes overcooks what remains a simple recipe to entertain.

Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Jack Black and Dwayne Johnson in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Picture: Sony Pictures.

The one that just drifts along in a happy hipster haze

PATERSON (M) ****

NETFLIX

If you have Paterson high up on your must-see list, there are a few matters that are best dealt with ahead of time. Firstly, lead actor, Adam Driver is playing a bus driver.

Secondly, his character is named Paterson, and lives in the city of Paterson, New Jersey. Over the course of one week, we witness Paterson, a man in his early thirties, go through the cycle of a typical day.

However, the more this rigid schedule is repeated in the film, the more deep, meaningful and amusingly moving does Paterson’s fixed way of living his life become. A real gem from veteran American indie master filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers).

Adam Driver in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson. Picture: Supplied

The one where there’s commotion in the ocean

DEEPWATER HORIZON (M) ***

STAN

A disaster movie delivering a retrospective scoop on one of the biggest preventable man-made catastrophes of all time. It all went down in April 2010, where the contravention of standard safety protocols on a new BP drill site resulted in 11 men dead, scores more injured, and 5 million barrels of oil pumped into the Gulf of Mexico.

A secondary plot melodramatically exploring tensions between working-class heroes like the rig’s chief electrics man (Wahlberg) and villains such as BP’s chief slick-talker (John Malkovich) humanises a terrifying major calamity on a surprisingly personal scale. Co-stars Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson.

The one that takes many classy jabs

THE FENCER (M) ***

FOXTEL NOW

A beautifully filmed drama (kind of) based on a fascinating true story. The year is 1952, and a decorated fencer named Endel (played by Mart Avandi) is on the run from Russian police.

The urgent need to hide leads him to the backblocks of rural Estonia, where he poses as a fencing instructor. What seems like the perfect cover could be blown when the local children under Endel’s fencing tutelage develop in talent at a rapid rate.

Fist Fight is more miss than hit. Picture: Supplied

The one that takes a swing … and a big miss

FIST FIGHT (MA15+) *1/2

STAN, FOXTEL NOW

A new twist on the old formula of the after-school scrap. What if it were two teachers putting their dooks up for a punch-up? The answer that Fist Fight issues ain’t so educational.

As for funny, well, you had better set your entertainment bar very low. To be fair, the much-mooted scholastic smackdown between chalkboard colleagues (whiny doormat Charlie Day and perma-scowling psychopath Ice Cube) — when it finally arrives — is guilty-pleasure good. The rest deserves detention.