I’m an action guy and there is no dearth of action film these days. Every male actor seems to want to try their hand at a James Bond, super-operator, gun wielding, bad ass. Taken follows the mold with few detours. Liam Neeson is adequate as the ex-CIA operative who has 96 hours to find his daughter before she is lost in the underground world of white-slavery. His character is perhaps more brutally efficient than some and he is certainly not afraid of ‘wet work’ as he turns beautiful Paris upside down in his search. The stunts are nothing new. Lots of quick Wing-chun, Aikido and Krav maga style close quarter combatives. I can’t say it was a bad movie, but it wasn’t very interesting either. It was mildly entertaining. If you like action and Liam Neeson, you could do worse.
Archive for the 'Movie Reviews' Category
Wow. Sam Mendes can take you places you would never go, never want to go and then make you glad you went. Revolutionary Road is a voyeuristic look at the train wreck that is the life of what should be the quintessential All-American couple. Leonardo DiCaprio is very good as a real bastard who plays everything and everyone for his own benefit. The subtle psychological abuse he doles out is truly evil when you see it. The ambiguity of his character is fascinating. Does he do it consciously or is it a reflection of the mores of the times? The only thing I can criticize is his looks. When he’s 60, I bet he will still look 20. It’s hard to imagine him as an adult with his boyish looks. Winslet is wonderful and the tragic star. The one person who dares to express dissatisfaction with her lot and trys to change it. You will get something from this film. It may be a warning. It may be depressing. You may thank God you’re not them, but you will take something away with you. See the movie and tell me what you think.
Who would think a character study of a beat up professional wrestler would get the attention of the Academy? Sometimes making a good movie is rewarded. Mickey Roarke is stellar. He’s had a lot of personal experience to draw on for this role. He’s been down and forgotten a few times only to come back and surprise me. Sin City was the last surprise from him and The Wrestler is Oscar caliber in my unprofessional opinion. (Much more deserving than Brad Pitt in Benjamin Button!) Marisa Tomei is excellent as well. She is gorgeous and gives depth to her role as a middle aged stripper. The film is shot largely in a hand held style that gives the picture a documentary feel that makes it seem more real. Anyone working through middle-age will see plenty of themselves in this film. The movie made me think and that is, to me, a sign of a good movie.
Dustin Hoffman has been playing lovable losers his entire career it seems, The Graduate, Little Big Man and Marathon Man to name a few. I’ve been smitten by Emma Thompson ever since The Remains of the Day. Put them together in a romantic comedy and you have a sweet, if improbable, story that will inspire droves of hopeless romantics to update their profile on eHarmony.com. Hoffman has such an extraordinary way of communicating emotion through facial expression and body language. In the most powerful scenes he says very little. Thompson too is very expressive without words. She is extremely seductive as a vulnerable, neurotic spinster always on the verge of tears. Hoffman is a loser, but you can’t help but love the lost little gnome. Everyone will identify with some aspect of these two characters. It’s a fairytale and you know it’s going to have a happy ending, and these things don’t happen in the real world, and it really doesn’t make much sense, but you will cry anyway and think Love can be found and Life is too short to be miserable. Sometimes you just need to take a chance.
Defiance is a decent WWII action/dramatic picture. It is straightforward and watchable, but it’s no Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List. I’m sure it was pitched as the best of both: action + pathos. Daniel Craig is the lead and he clearly out does Cruise in at least affecting a believable Slavic accent (there was a lot of Russian spoken and maybe Polish, I can’t differentiate them myself). There won’t be any Oscar nominations, but it is a story worth telling. Some may see it as just another WWII story of courageous partisans fighting Nazis and think it a waste of time. I think we can’t get enough of this stuff. It’s impossible for us to imagine the horrors and sacrifice people made to fight evil and we should remind ourselves constantly. Whenever you feel sorry for yourself because gas is too expensive, your 401K has taken a beating, or there’s no cell signal where you are, then think about living in the forest for a few years with people trying to kill you because you were born a certain ethnicity. It puts thing in perspective. The Bielski’s, like Oscar Schindler, did not seek recognition for what they did, but they saved thousands of Jews from extermination and their children’s, children’s, children may be you or a friend of yours.
Clint Eastwood has given rise to some of the iconic characters in cinema. From spaghetti westerns to cool cop to noted director and Oscar winner he has earned a respected place in movie history. Gran Torino will no doubt get him another Oscar nomination and if he wins, it will be due to his body of work and not this performance. Not that he gives a poor performance, it’s just not Oscar material in my opinion. The story of a grouchy old man dealing with being alone and facing the changes in his world is nothing new. Old folks learning to respect and appreciate others is cliche’ too. Maybe simple familiar themes are comforting to people and we can identify easily with them. The audience certainly identified with Walt Kowalski. Every racial epithet and grumble elicited chortles and snickers. I couldn’t get away with it, but Clint can. It’s OK. We expect old people to be racist. In earlier times much of Gran Torino would be considered a minstrel show and abhorred by ‘enlightened’ individuals, but since most of the racism is directed towards Asians it’s not so bad. I don’t think Clint had this in mind while directing the film. His character is an ignorant old man carrying scars he won’t let anyone but us see and we know he will be redeemed by the end of the movie. I can’t decide if this is an important film for Clint or not. He works fast and doesn’t like too many takes. He trusts his actors and likes the ‘honesty’ of the first take whenever possible. This doesn’t allow for much subtlety in the performances. I may be getting grouchy myself in being hyper critical. As I left the theater I saw a woman weeping uncontrollably, really inconsolable, so Gran Torino had some impact on the audience. Am I getting too old and jaded to be able to simply enjoy a movie? See Gran Torino and let me know what you think.
Look around and find this movie before it disappears. A clever story about a street kid whose whole life has prepared him for his moment of destiny on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. There is a love story, tragedy, humor and a look at the best and worst sides of life in the urban jungle of Mumbai. This isn’t a big budget movie and goes to show that a good story that draws you into it doesn’t need special effects to dazzle the senses. For most of us, the scenes of modern India will be like a National Geographic special. The photography is naturally spectacular. From the early scenes of ghetto life you identify with the characters and want to find out what happens through every twist and turn. Will he find the girl? Will his brother find forgiveness? Will he win the 20,000,00 Rupees? See the movie to find out. There is considerable buzz about this movie and for once it is deserved. It has won awards in Toronto and Telluride and Oscars are being talked about.
I loved Sin City and 300. I like film noir. Samuel L. Jackson has been my hero since Pulp Fiction. The trailers and previews had me hoping this movie would be as good as the hype. Alas, The Spirit is lacking, well…spirit. The elements of cast, script, and cinematography just didn’t come together for me. The noir aspect didn’t quite come off. The fast over the top dialog quickly became inane and lacked the sincerity needed to sell it. Watch The Maltese Falcon and listen to the exchanges between Bogart and Lorrie, or Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep. Just as preposterous, but you accept it and believe people may actually talk like that. The visuals are good a la Sin City, but we’ve already seen Sin City many times and would like something different. Gabriel Macht isn’t bad, but he doesn’t make a memorable superhero crime-fighter. Jackson is too cartoonish as a mad scientist. The costume changes for every scene are cute and the best part of the film is waiting to see what Scarlet Jo will be wearing. That’s not enough for me. If you were dying for a big screen adaptation of your favorite cult comic, then you may not be too disappointed. But if you want really good films watch any of those mentioned above and add The Asphalt Jungle, Double Indemnity, Key Largo, The Killers, Out of the Past, Laura, and many others of the classic noir period. You’ll see where many standard film techniques were born.
Lot’s of people will like this movie. Lot’s of people like Brad Pitt and refuse to see any flaw in anything he does. The film looks good. I enjoyed much of the visuals, but the frequent flashbacks (to the present) were rather annoying. The story is intriguing. I like fantasy and the paradox explored is fun to discuss. Believe me, I rail regularly at how cruel fate is to grant wisdom and knowledge with age and commensurate frailty of body. The performances are pretty good when Pitt and Blanchett can act their relative ages. For some reason actors think they have to do these age transformations to prove something to the guild. The hours of makeup are some kind of badge of honor, it seems. Pitt and Blanchett try hard and it was distracting. You could tell they were ‘acting’ old with all the usual old people business you might see in an actor’s workshop. Why New Orleans and the old southern accents? Couldn’t Cate do any other American accent? And since the story has nothing in common with F. Scott’s short story, (except the title and theme of living life from old to young) why not let her talk like an Aussie? I don’t think Pitt can carry a picture on his own. His devotion to the art is genuine, but I don’t think he has the chops. It seems he’s always Brad Pitt doing some other character. As Olivier is alleged to have quipped to Dustin Hoffman while making Marathon Man, “…try acting…”.
The heroes of this movie are those who sit through it. I was amazed and appalled at how uncompelling this film is. I’m a history buff and a WWII nerd. I knew about the Officers’ Plot and think it is a great story to be told. Despite the bad buzz, I was more than willing to give the benefit of doubt to this movie. I found nothing to recommend. The acting is mediocre. Cruise is out of place and unsympathetic. The script is dull. The cinematography was OK, but nothing visually exciting. The aftermath was skipped and that may be the most interesting part of the story. Hitler was never the same after this incident. His paranoia and mistrust of the Wehrmacht General staff only grew and any influence they may have had was gone. The ruthless extermination of anyone connected to the plot was glossed over. Irwin Rommel, The Desert Fox and a national hero, was implicated and forced to commit suicide to save his family. Not even mentioned. I didn’t think this film was apologetic of the Nazi regime as some have criticized, it is just bad. I got no feeling of the director’s vision and I’m left with unanswered questions. I know why some folks wanted to kill Hitler, I don’t know why they made this movie.
Saying “Klaatu barada nikto” didn’t make this movie stop no matter how many time I said it to myself and Gort couldn’t put me out of my misery despite my violent thoughts. Remakes are evidence of the cynicism inherent in the film industry. If an old movie did well a generation (or two) ago, then why not retread it for a new audience. Put in some glitzy effects, cast a big name star and you’ll have a box office hit. No need to come up with something new. If they had simply reshot the 1951 classic, they might have had a good movie. The 2008 version, (very, very loosely based on the original SCI-FI epic) is not anywhere near as compelling. Keanu Reeves is not Michael Rennie by any stretch of the imagination. He’s Neo here to save the Earth from us horrible humans, but without the kung-fu. The message is not presented with any degree of subtlety. There’s is the obligatory evil U.S. Government and kill crazy military, naturally. Jennifer Connelly gives a good performance and is as lovely as ever, still that doesn’t carry this picture. The child here is annoying, unlike the innocent boy who takes the ‘stranger in a strange land’ around in the original. The special effects are decent, but that doens’t make up for the convoluted script . Go to Walmart and get a $5 copy of the 1951 movie. You’ll not be disappointed.
I haven’t been into comics since high school and never did read The Punisher even then, but I was familiar with the story line of the vigilante whose family is murdered and he sets about avenging them. Ray Stevenson plays Frank Castle and I wasn’t aware of him before this. He apparently is a star in the HBO series Rome which is pretty popular, but I don’t pay for HBO and have never seen an episode. He’s very cool in this film and plays the dark brooding vigilante well. He’s as cold blooded as they come and the massive graphic violence he doles out on screen is rather surprising in this day of political correctness. The gunplay is realistic and Stevenson obviously had training from pros for this part. His use of the M-16 was textbook and the techniques familiar to any SWAT or military ‘operator’. His penchant for Baretta 93R’s was a bit over the top, but it is a film based on a comic book. The supporting characters are well played and the bad guys are classic comic book villains with an evil and black humor bent. This is a niche movie that appeals to a limited comic/action/testosterone heavy audience, but if any of that is your thing, then you’ll not be punished seeing this flick. (Your significant-other may be though. You may have to endure Four Christmases to make up for it and that would be punishment indeed!)
Action movies should be full of action. The bad guys are bad and the good guy is good. Expectations were not high for this film and I wasn’t disappointed. Jason Statham is the little big man who can’t be stopped no matter what impossible situation he’s forced into. He out MacGyvers MacGyver. There are highly choreographed fight scenes that would impress the best of Hong Kong in its prime. The over the top and impossible driving exploits are campy and reminiscent of Smokey and the Bandit (Jason Statham doesn’t wear a rug, however). There will be no Oscar nominations coming out of this, but if you like cars, guns and fights, then you’ll be happy with this latest installment of the Transporter. It is certainly a guy thing.
How many dysfunctional family holiday films have to be made? Apparently at least one each year. Get a bunch of well known Hollywood names (plus a couple country music stars) and it’ll make money, or so you hope. Maybe big meals and our own dysfunctional families make us stupid enough to keep going to these mediocre (at best) movies, or maybe these pathetic characters make us feel better about ourselves in comparison. I don’t know. Maybe my expectations are too high. There were a number of people in the theater who giggled at every every cliche situation and tittered at every sexual innuendo, so perhaps Hollywood is giving the masses what they want. I like Vince Vaughn and he is wasted in this setting. The out takes have to be funnier than what is left in the movie. When baby puke is the funniest thing in your film, you might want to go back to the story board. I was disappointed by the lack of anything new or innovative in the entire movie. You’ll laugh more at your own family stories than this movie.
A bad western is not that unusual I suppose. A classic genre that is full of cliche’s and archetypes, but you know that in the beginning and expect it and, hopefully, something more comes out. Ed Harris tries, but I just didn’t see it. A gunfighter who reads Emerson is ‘deep’ I guess, yet nothing else fills out the character. This is Harris’ second project as director/actor and I can tell he’s a minimalist like Eastwood. Maybe another take or two would have helped. He has a good eye and the picture looks great, while the attention to detail in costume and language is impressive. Even I might swoon over Viggo Mortensen’s character. As the loyal to a fault sidekick, he is the most complete character and you can’t help but like him. Zellwegger is annoying, as usual, and very out of place in this film. Jeremy Irons is classical in his antagonist role. He’s so bad, he’s good. There was just not enough holding it together in the end. Some interesting and wonderful vignettes and tableau’s, but not a complete movie worthy of the wealth of talent available from Harris, Mortensen and Irons.
