Review: "When the Sky Falls" Means Well (Happy B'ay, Kevin McNally)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 73 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

When the Sky Falls (2000)
Running time:  107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – R for brutal violence, strong language, drug content and some sexuality
DIRECTOR:  John Mackenzie
WRITERS:  Ronan Gallagher, Colum McCann, and Michael Sheridan; with additional dialogue by Guy Andrews
PRODUCERS:  Nigel Warren Green and Michael Wearing
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Seamus Deasy
EDITOR:  Graham Walker
COMPOSER:  Pol Brennan

CRIME/DRAMA

Starring:  Joan Allen, Patrick Bergin, Liam Cunningham, Kevin McNally, Jimmy Smallhourne, Gerard Mannix Flynn, Jason Barry, Pete Postlethwaite, Des McAleer, Owen Roe, Gavin Kelty, and Ruaidhrí Conroy

The subject of this movie review is When the Sky Falls, a 2000 crime drama directed by the late John Mackenzie.  The film is a fictional account of a real-life Irish investigative reporter’s battle with a Dublin drug lord.  This film stars one of my favorite actors, Joan Allen, and Kevin McNally, an actor of whom I became a fan after his roles in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.  When the Sky Falls did not receive a theatrical release in the United States, although it is partly a U.S. production.

When the Sky Falls, a fact-based drama, focuses on Sinead Hamilton (Joan Allen), a reporter who invades the drug underworld of Dublin, Ireland.  Mackey (Patrick Bergin), the police officer who helps her, is mostly ineffectual because bureaucracy and lack of resources tie his hands.  Her husband, Tom (Kevin McNally), doesn’t particularly care about her work, but he supports her.

Sinead consorts with Mickey O’Fagan (Jimmy Smallhourne), minor thug who just might lead her to the big fish, Dave Hackett (Gerard Flynn), a brutal drug boss.  Add the Irish Republican Army to the danger mix, and you have a lone woman as a crusading reporter headed for doom.

The film is based upon the story of real life Dublin reporter Veronica Guerin with Sinead Hamilton as the fictional version of her, and for all the drama of the last year of Ms. Guerin’s short life, When the Sky Falls is rather tepid.  Although the film is less than two hours long, it drifts from one genre to another.

At moments, it’s a fairly intense crime thriller about a woman going after greedy men who would see the whole of Dublin addicted to heroin so that they could be fabulously wealthy.  At other times, it’s a clunky and clumsy crime drama about cops willing to go to any extreme to nail a criminal; that is whenever Patrick Bergin’s Mackey takes over the story.  It’s also a lame, movie of the week melodrama about a crusading reporter whenever Sinead Hamilton visits the offices of the newspaper for which she writes.

Anyone of the three storylines could have made a good film at a running time of one hundred and six minutes.  As it is, the subplots and storylines crowd the movie, and the filmmakers don’t do any of them justice.  The cast is mostly good, but seem to run on simmer and slow burn, lest they really let loose and chew up the scenery.  Dog forbid this movie should be as passionate as its real life subject matter.  I like Joan Allen, but this is one of her weaker performances – decent, but the kind of low wattage thing we can get from a TV movie.  When the Sky Falls is a fairly good film, but if you don’t see it, you won’t be missing anything important.

5 of 10
B-

Updated:  Sunday, April 27, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Amy Berg's "Deliver Us from Evil" is Powerful and Pointed

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 90 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Deliver Us from Evil (2006)
Running time:  103 minutes (1 hour, 43 minutes)
MPAA – (Not rated)
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Amy Berg
PRODUCERS:  Amy Berg, Matthew Cooke, Frank Donner, and Hermas Lassalle
CINEMATOGRAPHERS:  Jacob Kusk and Jens Schlosser
EDITOR:  Matthew Cooke
COMPOSERS:  Joseph Arthur and Mick Harvey
2007 Academy Award nominee

DOCUMENTARY – Religion and Crime

Starring:  Oliver O’Grady, Thomas Doyle, Jane Degroot, Case Degroot, Anne Jyono, Bob Jyono, Marie Jyono, and Nancy Sloan

Deliver Us from Evil is a 2006 Oscar-nominated documentary film from writer-director, Amy Berg.  The film focuses on a Catholic priest whom the Catholic Church relocated to various parishes around the United States for the better part of two decades in order to cover up his rape of dozens of children.

Berg has recently gained notoriety because of a documentary film upon which she is currently working.  The unnamed film reportedly contains sex abuse allegations made against director Bryan Singer.  Singer is best known for his work on 20th Century Fox’s X-Men film franchise and for the Oscar-winning film, The Usual Suspects.

From the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, Catholic priest, Father Oliver O’Grady moved about Northern California molesting and raping countless children.  With her unsettling documentary, Deliver Us from Evil, director Amy Berg exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed O’Grady to abuse children (and sometimes their parents).  Berg conducts a series of disturbing interviews with the pedophile priest that seek to provide a window for the viewer into the mind of this deeply troubled man, and Berg also mixes that with his victims’ stories.

Deliver Us from Evil attempts to construct a portrait of O’Grady as a spiritual leader who moved from church parish to church parish and gained the trust of various congregations, only to later betray so many of them by abusing their children.  Berg thoroughly investigates O’Grady’s past as a priest and speaks with many of his victims and parishioners, as well as participants involved in O’Grady’s legal cases.  Later in the film, she broadens her approach to take a look at clergy abuse of children in Boston, and she interviews people who believe that the problem of abuse is international and may have begun as early as the fourth century.  Experts on theology and law speak to the doctrinal, legal, and theological issues that establish an environment for abuse.

Although the film seems to lose focus the last 20 minutes or so, Deliver Us from Evil is as mesmerizing as any great film thriller or as riveting and frightening as any great horror movie, and it exposes evil that is widespread and even more destructive.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2007 Academy Awards:  1 nomination for “Best Documentary, Features” (Amy Berg and Frank Donner)

Monday, June 11, 2007

Updated:  Saturday, April 19, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: Father and Daughter Hold Down the "Homefront"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 11 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Homefront (2013)
Running time:  101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence, pervasive language, drug content and brief sexuality
DIRECTOR:  Gary Fleder
WRITER:  Sylvester Stallone (based upon the novel by Chuck Logan)
PRODUCERS:  Sylvester Stallone, Kevin King Templeton, John Thompson, and Les Weldon
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Theo van de Sande
EDITOR:  Padraic McKinley
COMPOSER:  Mark Isham

CRIME/ACTION/DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring:  Jason Statham, James Franco, Izabela Vidovic, Kate Bosworth, Marcus Hester, Winona Ryder, Clancy Brown, Omar Benson Miller, Rachelle Lefevre, Frank Grillo, Chuck Zito, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Linds Edward, and Austin Craig

Homefront is a 2013 crime thriller and action movie from director Gary Fleder.  The film is loosely based on the 2005 novel, Homefront, by author Chuck Logan.  Homefront the movie focuses on a former DEA agent who moves to a small town, where he soon catches the attention of a local drug lord.

Homefront is a mean, gritty little bastard of a film.  It is a true southern gothic in the tradition of such movies as White Lighting (a Burt Reynolds classic), Deliverance, and Walking Tall.

Widowed ex-solider Phil Broker (Jason Statham) works undercover for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).  After an operation goes bad, Broker retires, and he and his 10-year-old daughter, Maddy (Izabela Vidovic), move to the quiet Southern town of Rayville.  However, the small town is riddled with drugs and violence, and, after Maddy gets into a fight at her new school, Broker discovers that Rayville is not as idyllic as it seems on the surface.  Broker catches the attention of Gator Bodine (James Franco), a local drug lord with big ambitions.  Those ambitions cause Gator to go into Broker’s past, which brings trouble for everyone.

It is too easy to mock a screenplay written by Sylvester Stallone; after all, he has been writing movie scripts for four decades.  His Homefront screenplay is tightly written, perhaps a bit too tightly.  The movie runs at about an hour-and-a-half of actual story time, which is too short for the plot and characters.  Stallone introduces several characters and establishes them as potentially having a major impact on the story.  Many of them, however, end up being used sparingly, especially the teacher Susan Hetch (Rachelle Lefevre), who might have romantic feelings for Broker.  Cassie Bodine Klum (Kate Bosworth), as a character connected to both Broker and Bodine, has the most potential to improve the drama in Homefront, but, except for a few scenes, Cassie is underutilized.

What Stallone’s script gets right is the relationship between Broker and his daughter, Maddy.  The film takes the time to establish how important both characters are to each other.  The movie emphasizes two things:   as a family that recently underwent loss, Broker and Maddy are in a fragile state and also that external threats are not the only things that can damage the family.  Maddy is every bit as stubborn and determined as her father, and her love for him won’t deter her from confronting him.  So when the bad guys start attacking, the audience will buy into the threat to the family because the film made the bond and relationship between Broker and Maddy seem genuine and honest.

Fear not, Jason Statham fans; our guy gets to kick ass and pop caps.  Director Gary Fleder and film editor Padraic McKinley largely eschew CGI god-tech and instead, offer old-fashioned, no-gloss gunfights that will glue your attention to the screen.  The bone-crunching, ball-rupturing, face-smashing fights are short and to the point, and I found myself re-watching them.

Homefront is one of the better Jason Statham vehicles because his character seems more grounded in realism.  Phil Broker is both susceptible to being hurt and has something to lose.  And because this movie was not a box office success, we likely won’t get to see Statham as Broker in another film – a pity.

6 of 10
B

Sunday, March 09, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Reivew: Sayles Draws Viewers in "LIMBO" (Happy B'day," David Strathairn)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 34 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Limbo (1999)
Running time:  126 minutes (2 hours, 6 minutes)
MPAA – R for language
EDITOR/WRITER/DIRECTOR:  John Sayles
PRODUCER:  Maggie Renzi
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Haskell Wexler
COMPOSER:  Mason Daring
Palme d'Or nominee

DRAMA/THRILLER/ROMANCE

Starring:  Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, David Strathairn, Venessa Martinez, Kris Kristofferson, and Casey Siemaszko

The subject of this movie review is Limbo, a 1999 drama and crime-thriller from writer-director John Sayles.  The film focuses on a fisherman who tries to protect his new girlfriend and her daughter from his past and his brother’s present.  The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, and at the 1999 Seattle International Film Festival, Sayles received the “Golden Space Needle Award” for “Best Director.”  The National Board of Review, USA also gave Limbo a “Special Recognition” award “For excellent in filmmaking.”

John Sayles is a true independent filmmaker, rarely dealing with the major studios to produce his pictures, although they have distributed them, as is the case with Limbo.  Upon seeing this film, one can understand why he remains an independent.  Most directors can do this kind of film once or twice, but to make a career out of films like this, a director has to have an iron will.

Joe Gastineau (David Strathairn, a veteran of several Sayles films) lives, but that’s all he does.  He merely lives, working a few odd jobs in a small Alaska town.  He meets and helps out Donna De Angelo (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) a lovelorn lounge singer and the mother of one of Joe’s coworkers Noelle (Vanessa Martinez), and Joe gently falls for Donna.  When Joe’s self-inflated half-brother Bobby (Casey Siemaszko, Young Guns) blows into town, the four take a journey to up-country Alaska that changes and endangers their lives.

The acting is good, especially from the trio of Strathairn, Ms. Mastrantonio, and Ms. Martinez.  Strathairn is a vulnerable and moody character, but a quite approachable guy, a strong and supportive man when he has to be.  Ms. Mastrantonio is punch drunk from the love of broken relationships, but she never gives up on the positive, even when things keep falling apart.  Ms. Martinez is the sullen, self-pitying teen; quiet and withdrawn, she is an imaginative storyteller who can take elements of her life and create metaphorical delights.  Sayles has affection for these characters, and, because he takes time to give them depth, we care about them.

Sayles, a novelist and short story writer, creates films with characters that are very much like real people.  Each and every character has their own story, and a Sayles movie is actually of composition containing all these characters’ stories.  His gift is to show the viewers enough of each story so that they can get a feel for the film.  We see more of the lead characters’ stories, but we get a taste of every person’s story.  He is a visionary, able to weave stories with the same complexities and depth of a novel into the visual shorthand of a film.

Critics have accused his films of not having passion, but they have sold their souls for the press junkets and star interviews of the major studios and their product.  A Sayles film is vibrant and engaging.  He makes you think, and he lets you be part of the film, to put yourself inside the story.  This is as vicarious a thrill as any adrenalin-monkey action movie.

8 of 10
A

NOTE:
1999 Cannes Film Festival:  1 nomination: “Palme d'Or” (John Sayles)

Updated:  Sunday, January 26, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

--------------------------

Review: "2 Guns" of Fun

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 4 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

2 Guns (2013)
Running time:  109 minutes (1 hour, 49 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence throughout, language and brief nudity
DIRECTOR:  Baltasar Kormákur
WRITER:  Blake Masters (based on the Boom! Studios graphic novels by Steven Grant)
PRODUCERS:  Andrew Cosby, Randall Emmett, George Furla, Norton Herrick, Marc Platt, Ross Richie, and Adam Siegel
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Oliver Wood (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Michael Tronick
COMPOSER:  Clinton Shorter

ACTION/CRIME with elements of a comedy

Starring:  Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, Edward James Olmos, Bill Paxton, James Marsden, Robert John Burke, Fred Ward, John McConnell, Jack Landry, Lucky Johnson, and Lindsey Smith

2 Guns is a 2013 action and crime film from director Baltasar Kormákur.  The film is based on Two Guns, a 2007 comic book by writer-creator Steven Grant and artist Mateus Santolouco.  2 Guns the movie stars Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg as a DEA agent and a naval intelligence officer, respectively, on the run and double-crossed after a botched attempt to infiltrate a drug cartel.

2 Guns introduces Robert Lynn Trench (Denzel Washington), who is an agent with the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency), and Petty Officer Michael Stigman (Mark Wahlberg), who is with United States Naval Intelligence.  They only know each other, however, as Bobby Beans and Stig, two dudes trying to make it big in the world of narcotics dealing.

The duo robs a bank in Tres Cruces, New Mexico, in an attempt to infiltrate the drug cartel controlled by Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos).  They find more than they expect:  about themselves, about their respective superiors in the worlds of law enforcement and the U.S. Navy, and about the money – the really large of sum of money.  Now, Bobby and Stigman’s shaky alliance has to stay strong if they want to stay alive.

I have described some movies as basically being “not great, but entertaining.”  That is 2 Guns.  This is not filet mignon; this is like a Big Mac®, which delivers the tastiness you expect when you buy a Big Mac.  2 Guns delivers the fun you would expect from a movie about a lone gun who is betrayed and on the run – times two lone guns.  The viewer will have to wade through about an hour of set-up and build-up before the buddy-movie action explodes in a hail of bullets and a pile of bodies.

In this film, Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are pretty much doing the kinds of characters they have done before in one form or another, except this time, there is plenty of winking and nudging.  2 Guns is an action movie with a comic edge.  It is light and fizzy, and by the end of the movie, I was hoping for a sequel.

2 Guns was something of a box office disappointment, but fans of Washington and Wahlberg will be delightfully surprised when they find this movie on DVD or on television – for years to come.

6 of 10
B

Wednesday, January 22, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review "Murder at 1600" Surprises (Happy B'day, Diane Lane)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 10 (of 2002) by Leroy Douresseaux

Murder at 1600 (1997)
Running time:  107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – R for sexuality, violence and some language
DIRECTOR:  Dwight H. Little
WRITERS:  Wayne Beach and David Hodgin
PRODUCERS:  Arnold Kopelson and Arnon Milchan
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Steven Bernstein (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Leslie Jones and Billy Weber
COMPOSER:  Christopher Young

DRAMA/CRIME/THRILLER with elements of action

Starring:  Wesley Snipes, Diane Lane, Daniel Benzali, Dennis Miller, Alan Alda, Ronny Cox, Diane Baker, Tate Donovan, and Harris Yulin

The subject of this movie review is Murder at 1600, a 1997 crime and detective thriller from director Dwight H. Little and starring Wesley Snipes and Diane Lane.  The film follows a homicide detective and a secret service agent as they try to unravel the conspiracy surrounding a young female staffer found dead in a White House wash room.

Washington D. C. Police Homicide Detective Harlan Regis (Wesley Snipes) gets a call that there has been a murder at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the address of the White House.  When he arrives, he discovers the body of a slain young woman, and it is obvious that the Secret Service has already tampered with and removed evidence from the crime scene.  He immediately suspects a cover up.

Through a lot of effort, he eventually convinces Secret Service Agent Nina Chance (Diane Lane) to join him in the murder investigation.  From that point, they operate through a myriad of roadblocks and obstacles.  They are constantly on the run from murderous pursuers and others intent on stopping the investigation.  Raising the intensity level, the murder occurs during a touchy international incident between the United States and North Korea.

Directed by veteran helmsman Dwight H. Little (episodes of “The Practice” and Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home), Murder at 1600 is a surprisingly intriguing and exciting movie.  With elements of suspense, mystery, and drama, it is something of a thriller and an action movie.  Little expertly paces them film so that there is never a dull moment.  Something’s always just around the corner, and some seemingly nefarious person is always in the next room.  Add the element of government paid snipers and assassins, and the result is a nice edge of your seat picture - a chase movie for grown ups.

The writers Wayne Beach and the late David Hodgin do a wonderful job creating a single plot line that neatly divides into other interesting plot lines.  Very little is thrown away in this movie.  Like a classic whodunit, the suspects and motives pile on, but not like crap on the wall.  Rather, it’s like a complex puzzle, with not too many pieces, for the viewer it’s an engaging challenge to put together.

Wesley Snipes has always wanted to be an action movie badass, but his gift is in his untapped acting talent.  His rock solid good looks and thespian skills make him a natural leading man in the old Hollywood tradition (Kirk Douglas or Humphrey Bogart).  Like them, he is best in dramas that are suspenseful and intriguing.  He carries this movie on his strong shoulders even when the movie action becomes implausible.

Diane Lane (“Lonesome Dove”) is also another surprise.  She is a natural beauty, more earthy than doll-like without a model’s overdone and artificial looks.  She’s a woman’s woman – gritty and determined to do her job.  Her Nina Chance is the ideal partner to Snipes' Regis.  She isn’t the typical action movie female baggage; she holds her own, and she gets to pull Regis out of the fire a few times.

Ronny Cox as President Jack Neil and Alan Alda as Alvin Jordan, National Security Advisor are very good and quite intense in their parts.  Both are seemingly determined and over anxious to “be real” in their parts.  Dennis Miller makes a light add-on to the story and manages to serve a function, but nothing, not even his light part, hurts this movie.

Murder at 1600 isn’t by any means great, but it is very good and somewhat smart entertainment.  The last fifteen minutes or so is an exercise in the implausible, and is often inadvertently funny.  However, there is something to be said for making a movie that could have been bad quite enjoyable.

6 of 10
B

Updated: Wednesday, January 22, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

------------------------------

Review: "Murder My Sweet" is Flawed But Compelling (Rembering Dick Powell)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 79 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Murder, My Sweet (1944) – Black & White
Running time:  95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
DIRECTOR:  Edward Dmytryk
WRITER:  John Paxton (from the novel Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler)
PRODUCER:  Adrian Scott
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Harry J. Wild
EDITOR:  Joseph Noriega
COMPOSER:  Roy Webb

FILM-NOIR/MYSTERY/CRIME

Starring:  Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki, Miles Mander, Douglas Walton, Donald Douglas, Ralf Harolde, and Esther Howard

The subject of this movie review is Murder, My Sweet, a 1944 film noir detective movie from director Edward Dmytryk.  This film stars Dick Powell (one of my favorite actors) as a private detective drawn into a complex web of mystery and deceit after being hired to find an ex-con’s former girlfriend.

Murder, My Sweet is the film adaptation of the Raymond Chandler 1940 novel, Farewell, My Lovely, which was also the film’s original title.  For the U.S. release, the film’s name was changed to Murder, My Sweet so that people wouldn’t mistake it for a musical, as the film’s star, Dick Powell, was, up to that point, known as a singer.  The role revitalized Powell’s career, and he went on to play many tough guys.

The plot is convoluted and takes some effort to follow.  It begins when a big bruiser named Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki) shows up at the office of private detective, Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell).  Malloy has been in prison for eight years; recently released, he wants Marlowe to find his girl Velma, with whom he hasn’t spoken in six years.  However, another person hunting for something or someone walks into Marlowe’s office – Lindsay Marriott (Douglas Walton), a foppish fellow who claims to be acting as a middleman to retrieve a rather expensive jade necklace from the thieves who took it and who are willing to make a deal.

After Marriott is killed, the police consider Marlowe to be the lead murder suspect, but Marlowe has his eyes on a dysfunctional family trio:  a beautiful young woman named Ann Grayle (Anne Shirley), her wealthy father, Mr. Grayle (Miles Mander), and her stepmother, Helen Grayle (Claire Trevor).  Each one wants the jade necklace, for various reasons and is trying to manipulate Marlowe to get what he or she wants.  He, however, just isn’t having it, and he begins to connect his first case with his second.

Convoluted plot aside, some consider Murder, My Sweet to be the definitive film-noir movie in spite of its shaky script and throwaway and/or underdeveloped characters.  The characters don’t really stick and their connections to one another are flimsy and contrived, which drove me crazy because they had such potential.

The film is likely beloved because of its seductive vision of nighttime Los Angeles, here, shrouded in rich, lush shadows suggesting the quintessential film-noir setting for a hardboiled roughneck dick like Philip Marlowe.  There is hardly a daytime scene in this picture; it’s a dreamy nocturnal setting for night owls, and this is just the environment to make you forget a weak script and vastly undercooked characters.  Director Edward Dmytryk and cinematographer Harry Wild combine the former’s tendency towards flashy effects and the latter’s brilliant sense of noir into an atmosphere that is pure detective film from beginning to end.

The performances are mixed, although Claire Trevor as Helen Grayle creates a great femme fatale out of a very small part.  When she comes onto Marlowe, we know that she’d use her sexuality on him without hesitation in order to get her way, and this lady is just plain dangerous; you realize that from the moment you see her.  All that aside, the main attraction is Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe.  He interprets Marlowe as a no-nonsense kind of kind guy, but a glib fellow with a droll sense of humor.  He doesn’t pretend to play along with other’s bull, and he’s the proverbial straight shooter who calls bullshit when he sees it.  He’s not the strong, silent type because he talks a lot, but his verbalizing is merely the quick and tricky moves of a savvy fighter.  Powell adds life, a blazing presence, and practicality to the film-noir art of this movie.  Powell or artful noir – either one is more than enough reason to see this sadly flawed, but compelling film.

6 of 10
B

Monday, May 23, 2005

Updated:  Thursday, January 02, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "The Heat" is Hot

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 83 (of 2013) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Heat (2013)
Running time:  117 minutes (1 hours, 57 minutes)
MPAA – R pervasive language, strong crude content and some violence
DIRECTOR:  Paul Feig
WRITER:  Katie Dippold
PRODUCERS:  Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Robert Yeoman (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Jay Deuby and Brent White
COMPOSER:  Mike Andrews

COMEDY/CRIME/ACTION

Starring:  Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demian Bichir, Marlon Wayans, Michael Rapport, Jane Curtin, Spoken Reasons, Dan Bakkedahl, Taran Killam, Michael McDonald, Tom Wilson, Joey McIntyre, Michael Tucci, Bill Burr, and Nathan Corddry

The Heat is a 2013 crime comedy and buddy cop movie directed by Paul Feig.  The film stars Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy as (respectively) an uptight FBI Special Agent and a foul-mouthed Boston cop trying to take down a ruthless drug lord.

FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) works in the New York FBI field office, where she is very effective and skilled.  She is also arrogant and condescending, which may cost her a promotion.  Her boss, Hale (Demian Bichir), sends her to Boston to investigate a powerful drug kingpin named Larkin that few people have actually seen.  However, Ashburn’s investigation crashes into an ongoing investigation being conducted by Detective Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) of the Boston Police Department.  Mullins is quite skilled, capable, and streetwise, but she is also crass, foulmouthed, and rebellious.  Ashburn and Mullins are forced to work together, but their clash of personalities threatens to derail both lives and careers.

What can I say?  The Heat is funny.  It is yet another comedy blockbuster starring the still-red-hot Melissa McCarthy.  She is good in this film, but her obnoxious-on-steroids turn as Shannon Mullins works best because she plays off Sandra Bullock’s turn as Ashburn.  Bullock, who practically always plays likable characters, makes even the anal and snobby Ashburn emphatically likable.

The best thing that director Paul Feig, who directed also McCarthy in Bridesmaids, did was just let these two lovable movie stars and talented actresses do what they do.  The result, of course, is fast food film product that goes does quick and easy like a “Big Mac” when you’re hungry.  Feig even gives some supporting actors a chance to shine.  As Levy, Marlon Wayans quietly shows that he can easily and convincingly perform a role that is nothing more than a generic white guy whose sole purpose is to assist the lead characters.  This simple part proves that Wayans can perform just about any role.

Somewhere in the middle of this film, I thought that it seemed familiar.  Then, I realized that The Heat is a 21st century, gender roles-reversed, version of producer Joel Silver’s 1980s and 1990s film franchise, Lethal Weapon.  I would indeed like The Heat to become a franchise.  In fact, The Heat could be the perfect replacement for Lethal Weapon.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, December 07, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Smokin' Aces" is Not Quite Smokin' (Happy B;day, Ray Liotta)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 117 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Smokin’ Aces (2006)
Running time:  109 minutes (1 hour, 49 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong bloody violence, pervasive language, some nudity, and drug use
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Joe Carnahan
PRODUCERS:  Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Joe Carnahan, and Liza Chasin
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Mauro Fiore (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Robert Frazen
COMPOSER:  Clint Mansell

CRIME/ACTION with elements of comedy and drama

Starring:  Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta, Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Common, Taraji Henson, Martin Henderson, Peter Berg, Christopher Michael Holley, Nestor Carbonell, Chris Pine, Kevin Durand, Maury Sterling, Tommy Flanagan, Curtis Armstrong, Jason Batman, Mike Falkow Joseph Ruskin, Alex Rocco, Joel Edgerton, and Matthew Fox

The subject of this movie review is Smokin’ Aces, a 2007 crime and action film from director Joe Carnahan.  The movie focuses on a Las Vegas performer-turned-snitch and the large number of people trying to kill him.  The film was released theatrically in January 2007.

Smokin’ Aces is the first film from writer/director Joe Carnahan since his gritty crime flick, Narc, which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and went onto receive rave reviews (including praise from Harrison Ford).  The attention even earned him a deal to direct Mission: Impossible 3 before Carnahan departed the project over creative differences with Tom Cruise.

Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven) grew up amongst card sharks, gamblers, killers, and thugs.  By the time he was 21, Buddy was a wildly popular magician in Las Vegas, a celebrity who also got to hang out with the most dangerous criminals.  But Buddy wanted more.  He wanted to be gangster and became one before the law caught up with him.  After the sleazy Las Vegas illusionist agrees to testify against his former mob partners, he embarks on one last hurrah in Lake Tahoe before entering witness protective custody.

His one-time benefactor, Primo Sparazza (Joseph Ruskin), a mob power broker, isn’t about to let that happen.  Rumors are that Sparazza is willing to pay up to $1,000,000 for Buddy dead and his heart delivered back to Sparazza.  When word hits the street, a rogues gallery of degenerate assassins, killers, and psychopaths head for Lake Tahoe and the Nomad Casino where Buddy is hiding to claim the prize.  FBI Deputy Director Stanley Locke (Andy Garcia) sends his top agent, Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) and Messner’s veteran partner, Donald Carruthers (Ray Liotta), to keep Buddy safe, but can a few agents protect the seedy magician from a slew of would-be assassins?

Although the film has a delightful and wildly diverse cast, Smokin’ Aces is mostly a Pulp Fiction clone except that it has an even weirder cast of characters.  Defined by action movie frivolity, Smokin’ Aces attempts to make slime look glamorous.  Carnahan raises the crass display of bloodletting to new faux art heights.  The film has its moments, and its violence is as much cartoonish as it is nightmarish.  In a sense, it’s like some crazy, hyperactive crime comic book.  The film’s narrative is itself a card trick – an illusion in which the viewer keeps seeing what he expects to see and misses the obvious.  So the ending may come as a shock because it is something of a commentary on the dishonest and sometimes illegal means by which law enforcement goes after a large quarry.

Before that ending, there are some exceptional characters brought to life by actors giving rich performances.  Ryan Reynolds is the best of the lot, but Common as Sir Ivy and Alicia Keys and Taraji Henson as the badass assassin duo, Georgia Sykes and Sharice Watters, are fun to watch.

5 of 10
B-

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Updated:  Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

-------------------

Review: "Force of Execution" Has a Cap for Every Ass

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 82 (of 2013) by Leroy Douresseaux

Force of Execution (2013)
Running time:  99 minutes (1 hour, 39 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence throughout, sexual content/nudity and pervasive language
DIRECTOR:  Keoni Waxman
WRITERS:  Richard Beattie and Michael Black
PRODUCERS:  Nicolas Chartier, Phillip B. Goldfine, and Steven Seagal
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Nathan Wilson
EDITOR:  Trevor Mirosh
COMPOSER:  Michael Richard Plowman

CRIME/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring:  Steven Seagal, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo, Bren Foster, Jenny Gabrielle, David House, Eric Steinig, Jermaine Washington, J.D. Garfield, Cajardo Lindsey, Marlon Lewis, Andy Brooks, and Jesus Jr.

Force of Execution is a 2013 action and crime thriller from director Keoni Waxman.  Starring Steven Seagal and Ving Rhames, Force of Execution focuses on a war between a crime boss concerned about his legacy and the new boss who wants to take his place.

Mob kingpin Mr. Alexander (Steven Seagal) is an old-school boss – the kind who rules his criminal empire with nobility as well as brutality.  His protégé is Roman Hurst (Bren Foster), a skilled fighter and hit man.  Alexander assigns to Hurst a simple prison hit that goes wrong, and Hurst is forced to pay a price for his “failure.”

Later, challenges to Alexander’s power arise on two different fronts.  The first is a cold-blooded gangster known as “The Iceman” (Ving Rhames) or simply, “Ice.”  Ice is a kind of prince of a powerful street gang, and he soon begins to consolidate power, using murder and mayhem strategically.  The second group of rivals is a merciless Mexican cartel, led by a man known as Cesare (J.D. Garfield).  As these groups divide and fight over territory, the body count rises.  A shadow player, Oso (Danny Trejo), ex-con and cook, has a few hidden moves of his own.  He is helping the man who may well decide the winner of this citywide gangway find redemption and healing.

Force of Execution is by no means a great movie, but it is a surprisingly entertaining crime flick.  It is kind of like a clunky version of a Hong Kong action movie/shoot ‘em up.  Force of Execution’s biggest problem is in the writing.  Like Brooklyn’s Finest or the recent Pawn, Force of Execution has a screenplay that would work better if it were the basis for a television series.  This movie has a lot of good characters, but writers Richard Beattie and Michael Black squeeze them into a storytelling timeframe that is not adequate for allowing several characters to emerge and to fully develop, at least not the way a television series would.

Still, the script seems tailored made to let Steven Seagal, Ving Rhames, and Danny Trejo portray the kind of on-the-edge, crazy characters that movie fans want to see these actors play.  Older and pudgier, Seagal does not have to move very fast to be a convincing bad ass, and he can still kick some ass.  As far as I’m concerned, Danny Trejo is always a good thing.  There is always a little bit more to his characters than is obvious, and in this movie, that little bit more involves a kind of person called a “curandero.”

As for Ving Rhames:  well, as The Iceman, he calls everybody “nigger.”  I love a movie that lets niggas call niggas “niggas,” and here, Ving Rhames calls blacks, whites, browns, etc. “nigger,” when he is feeling jolly and little bit dangerous.  As Ice, Rhames has this movie’s best dialogue, and he makes good use of it.

I do wish the story had a better focus on Bren Foster’s Ramon Hurst.  Foster is good in the fight scenes, although he needs to improve as a dramatic actor.  Still, Foster would be a good choice to play the lead if some studio remade a classic Seagal flick like Marked for Death or Out for Justice.

Force of Execution is enjoyable.  It’s fun to watch Seagal beat people up and throw them into furniture and stacks of whatever is nearby.  Hand-to-hand combat does not take a backseat to gunplay, and the executions do have force behind them.  I wouldn’t mind at sequel to Force of Execution, at all.

6 of 10
B

Monday, December 16, 2013


The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Suspect Zero" is Not All it Can Be (Happy B'day, Henry Lennix)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 171 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Suspect Zero (2004)
Running time:  100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)
MPAA – R for violent content, language, and some nudity
DIRECTOR:  E. Elias Merhige
WRITERS:  Zak Penn and Billy Ray; from a story by Zak Penn
PRODUCERS:  Paula Wagner, Gaye Hirsch, and E. Elias Merhige
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Michael Chapman, ASC (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  John Gilroy and Robert K. Lambert, A.C.E.
COMPOSER:  Clint Mansell

CRIME/MYSTERY/THRILLER with elements of horror and sci-fi

Starring:  Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Carrie-Anne Moss, Harry Lennix, Kevin Chamberlain, Julian Reyes, Keith Campbell, William Mapother, and Buddy Joe Hooker

The subject of this movie review is Suspect Zero, a 2004 crime thriller starring Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley.  The film focuses on two characters, a mysterious serial killer who is hunting other serial killers and an FBI agent who suspects there may be more to this unusual vigilante than anyone can imagine.

A traveling salesman is found dead in his car just across the Arizona/New Mexico state line, and the killer performed some kind of ritual on the victim’s body.  The FBI and police wonder if there are others.  A second murder victim, a sixth-grade teacher from Boulder, Colorado, is found bound and gagged in the trunk of the car.  His killer also marked his body, so the police wonder if the two murders are connected.

FBI Agent Thomas Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart) isn’t sure, but he knows that the third murder is a personal message from the killer to him.  The victim is Raymond Starkey (Keith Campbell), a rapist/murder who escaped justice after Mackelway illegally goes to Mexico and does his Dirty-Harry-doesn’t-have-to-follow-the-rules routine that gets his case thrown out and lets Mackelway slip from the crack of Lady Justice’s butt cheeks.

Before long Agent Mackelway believes that the murderer is a man named Benjamin O’Ryan (Sir Ben Kingsley), and O’Ryan is either taunting him or helping him.  Mackelway’s past comes back to haunt him in the form of his ex-partner FBI Agent Fran Kulok (Carrie-Anne Moss).  He’ll need her to support him as the pressure mounts, and mysterious images…or could they be messages start to blossom in his mind as he tries to solve the riddle of Ryan and the next killer Ryan is hunting, the ultimate serial killer, Suspect Zero.

If, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details, it’s those devilish details that keep the mystery thriller, Suspect Zero, from becoming a great mystery thriller, but as the film is, it’s a damn good mystery thriller when all is said and done.  The film’s lone problem is its biggest, the slightly-more-than-paper-thin characters.  The character we get the most information about is Eckhart’s Mackelway, enough to find his plight and mission intriguing.  The script doesn’t give us enough to really enjoy and embrace him, and he’s the good guy, an enjoyable, embraceable kind of guy.  However, concerning Mackelway’s colleagues and the rest of the cast, we get next to nothing, just enough about them to move the plot.  There’s so little chemistry between Eckhart’s Mackelway and Ms. Moss’ Fran Kulok that if the filmmakers had replaced Kulok with a gay lover we still wouldn’t notice the character.

While the plot is the film’s strongpoint, the script isn’t.  It’s more or less a vehicle to move along genre conventions and to move the movie from one mystery, one murder, or one scary moment to the next.  It seems as if writer Zak Penn’s original script that he finished in 1997 was really a novel.  Screenwriter Billy Ray’s revisions tried to bring the novel back down to being a movie that runs just under two hours at the cost of characterization.  Luckily, both writers have made a career of composing actions and thrills for film so the missteps still make for a riveting movie.

When all is said and done and we look past the warts and all, Suspect Zero is not bad or great, but pretty good.  If you don’t mind the intense concentration this film’s oblique concepts and storytelling requires of you, and you accept that this is one of those times when you just can’t sit back and not think, then Suspect Zero will rock your recliner even if it doesn’t rock your world.

6 of 10
B

Updated: Saturday, November 16, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

-------------------------

Review: "The Purge" is Thrilling and Accusing

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 76 (of 2013) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Purge (2013)
Running time:  85 minutes (1 hour, 25 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong disturbing violence and some language
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  James DeMonaco
PRODUCERS:  Michael Bay, Jason Blum, Andrew Form, Bradley Fuller, and Sebastien Lemercier
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Jacques Jouffret
EDITOR:  Peter Gvozdas
COMPOSER:  Nathan Whitehead

SCI-FI/CRIME/THRILLER

Starring:  Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Rhys Wakefield, Tony Oller, Arija Bareikis, Chris Mulkey, and Tisha French

The Purge is a 2013 science fiction film and crime-thriller from writer-director James DeMonaco.  Set in the near-future, The Purge focuses on a wealthy family whose home is under siege on a night when violent crimes like murder and rape are legal and sanctioned by the American government.

The Purge is set in the United States of America in the year 2022.  Unemployment is at one percent.  Crime is at an all-time low, and violence barely exists.  How did this come to pass?  There is an event called “The Annual Purge,” when practically all criminal activity is legal.  Over a 12-hour period, Americans can rob, assault, rape, and murder each other and they will not face legal consequences.  This event, started by what the film calls America’s “New Founding Fathers,” allows Americans to purge or vent negative emotions and repressed/violent urges.

The Purge opens on March 21, 2022.  At 7 p.m. (Eastern, I presume), the Purge begins.  James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is a wealthy home security salesman who lives in an exclusive suburb of San Francisco, California.  After adding new security features to his house, James believes that he and his family:  wife, Mary (Lena Headey); daughter, Zoey (Adelaide Kane); and son, Charlie (Max Burkholder), can sit out this year’s edition of the Purge in the safety of their heavily fortified home.  However, a complication arises, and the Sandins end up receiving uninvited guests, and some want to kill them.

Several years ago, I happened to be watching CNN during one of those sadly rare moments when a guest says something thoughtful or thought-provoking about which we should all spend time considering.  That someone (“conservative film critic,” Michael Medved, I believe) talked about how he went from being a supporter of Robert F. Kennedy to becoming a political and social conservative.  These are not his exact words, but he basically said that sometimes we (the country as a whole) has to go to war.

My question to that statement and others like it is, “But who goes to war; who is going to do the fighting?”  Over the years, I’ve run into many people who consider or call themselves Republican, conservative, libertarian, etc., who are always demanding U.S. military action/intervention, yet they themselves never volunteer for the armed services so that they can do the fighting they so vociferously demand.  During last year’s U.S. Presidential campaign, a photograph of historical footnote Mitt Romney emerged which showed a young Mitt marching in favor of the Vietnam War.  He was even carrying a sign with a pro-war slogan.  This should have been embarrassing to Romney as he had successfully used a religious exemption as a Mormon to avoid military service.  I feel safe in assuming that Mitt was not embarrassed by the revelation of the photo.

The Purge, one of the most politically astute and socially relevant science fiction films to come around in years, delves into these notions and ideals of what it means to sacrifice for one’s country and also who or what is the sacrifice.  Writer-director James DeMonaco directly and bluntly asks why the people who benefit the most from what America offers feel that they should sacrifice the least for that same country.  Why are some people expendable merely because the elites believe that they have no value?  If sacrifice is so noble and valuable, then, would a destitute nobody really be a worthy sacrifice?

I like The Purge because it can be described as the attack the wealthy, the 1 percent, the old guard families, and the moneyed elites film.  I think this film is a commentary on American warfare, both class and military.  This is science fiction that is not escapist entertainment meant to generate merchandising revenue.  This is science fiction as pertinent speculative fiction, screaming out to the cattle and herders alike.  The Purge screams out that not everyone is willing to take one for the team unless everyone is willing to take one for the team.

8 of 10
A

Sunday, November 10, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: Suspenseful "Taking Lives" is Also Predictable (Happy B'day, Ethan Hawke)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 36 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Taking Lives (2004)
Running time:  103 minutes (1 hour, 43 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence including disturbing images, language and some sexuality
DIRECTOR:  D.J. Caruso
WRITER:  Jon Bokenkamp, from a screenstory by Jon Bokenkamp (based upon the novel by Michael Pye)
PRODUCER:  Mark Canton and Bernie Goldmann
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Amir Mokri (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Anne V. Coates
COMPOSER:  Philip Glass

CRIME/MYSTERY/THRILLER with elements of action and drama

Starring:  Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland, Gena Rowlands, Olivier Martinez, Tchéky Karyo, Jean-Hughes Anglade, and Paul Dano

The subject of this movie review is Taking Lives, a 2004 psychological thriller from director D.J. Caruso.  The film is loosely based on the novel, Taking Lives, a thriller written by Michael Pye and first published in 1999.  Taking Lives the movie focuses on an FBI profiler who is called in by French Canadian police in order to help them catch a serial killer that takes on the identity of each new victim.

Have modern film audiences seen everything?  Are they too jaded?  Sometimes I think they are, and sometimes I don’t.  Still, if films like Taking Lives are any indication, someone thinks film audiences, if they haven’t seen it all, have seen a lot.  Perhaps, a directors and screenwriters feel impelled to employ every twist and turn of a plot or story to shock the audiences into thinking, “Gee, I’ve never seen that before!”

In Taking Lives, Angelina Jolie is Illeana, an FBI profiler on loan to the French Canadian police in Montreal.  She is trying to track a serial killer who takes on the identity of each new victim.  When the police turn up Costa (Ethan Hawke), an alleged witness to one of the killer’s crimes, Illeana has an important lead in finding the illusive murderer, but when she begins to have strong feelings for Costa, she ends up getting dangerously closer to the mystery killer than she ever intended.

The film is competently directed, enough so to make it a standard and maybe a bit clunky, by-the-book thriller.  The acting is somewhat suspect.  In some scenes, Ms. Jolie hits her stride and without a word of dialogue, she’s able to transform Illeana from the typical, cardboard cutout FBI girl detective into a serious investigator with creepy insight into the mind of a psycho killer.  At other moments, her performance is pedestrian, and the only thing left for the viewer is to enjoy her beauty and admire those magical lips.

Taking Lives has some genuinely suspenseful and terrifying moments, but early in the film it starts to be a little too obvious who the killer really is and everything else becomes poorly disguised red herrings.  Taking Lives isn’t all that bad; it’s actually quite intriguing in a few places.  However, it’s not necessarily worth a trip to the theatre, but it’ll probably make a fairly decent rental.

5 of 10
C+

Updated:  Wednesday, November 06, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Firewall" is Not Memorable Harrison Ford Flick

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 145 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Firewall (2006)
Running time:  105 minutes (1 hour, 45 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some intense sequences of violence
DIRECTOR:  Robert Loncraine
WRITER:  Joe Forte
PRODUCERS:  Armyan Bernstein, Basil Iwanyk, and Jonathan Shestack
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Marco Pontecorvo
EDITOR:  Jim Page
COMPOSER:  Alexandre Desplat

CRIME/THRILLER/ACTION

Starring:  Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Robert Patrick, Robert Forster, Alan Arkin, Carly Schroeder, Jimmy Bennett, Kett Turton, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Vince Vieluf, and Vincent Gale

The subject of this movie review is Firewall, a 2006 British-American crime thriller starring Harrison Ford.  The film focuses on a security specialist who is forced into robbing the bank that he protects in order to pay a ransom for his family.

From 1990’s Presumed Innocent to 2000’s What Lies Beneath, Harrison Ford literally ruled the box office charts with a series of hit thriller flicks.  It didn’t matter if the film was set in a courtroom (like Presumed Innocent), in foreign countries (the Jack Ryan movies), a jet (Air Force One), or a haunted marriage (What Lies Beneath); Ford films were hits – some even blockbusters.  However, the new century has found Ford’s box office success largely diminished.  His 2006 film, Firewall, is a return to his 90’s form, but the film has only about a third of the scope and action thrills of his glory days.

Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) is the creator of Seattle-area Landrock Pacific Bank’s state-of-the-art-security system.  He has a reputation as being the man who’s thought of everything when it comes to protecting the bank from electronic theft, but Jack doesn’t know that he’s being watched.  A wily and vicious thief who says his name is Bill Cox (Paul Bettany) has hacked his way into Jack’s personal life and knows everything about Jack and his family:  wife, Beth (Virginia Madsen), his 14-year old daughter, Sarah (Carly Schroeder), and 8-year old son, Andy (Jimmy Bennett).

Now, Cox is holding Beth and the children hostage to force Jack to be their unwilling accomplice in a scheme to steal $100 million dollars from Landrock and the larger bank system with which Landrock recently merged.  Under constant surveillance, Jack must breach the very security system he created and siphon funds to several offshore accounts Cox and his accomplices own.  Jack, however, is sure that Cox will kill him and his family once Cox gets what he wants.  With only hours to accomplish his task, Jack must find, within Cox’s labyrinth of false identities, subterfuge, and plots Cox, an escape hatch through which he and his family can escape with their lives.

Firewall is an entertaining thriller, although it seems as if Ford is on automatic for this role.  Sure, he’s done this before.  He can turn on the grim intensity and growl on cue at the bad guys about what will happen if they hurt his family.  In fact, the script really plays up the hurt my family, protect the family, and family is all-important angles, as if the filmmakers were trying to hit some key red state demographic.  This family protection angle, like Ford’s performance, lacks spontaneity.

A thriller doesn’t have to be plausible to be thrilling, but Firewall stretches the limits of belief.  For every moment that I spent being thrilled, I spent two counting the times in this tale when some bank official, co-worker, or policeman would (or realistically should) have become so suspicious that he or she would have stepped in to stop this insane plot to rob a bank with the oh-so-formidable security system that the hero himself designed.  What?  Is there no oversight at this bank?

Other than Ford’s Jack Stanfield and Paul Bettany’s mechanical villain, Bill Cox, the script and the director ignore the rest of the characters, including several bank employees and officials.  The reason is simple:  the more you bring other people at the bank into this story, the more likely both the film’s plot and the villains’ plot would fall apart.  Still, Firewall is passable entertainment, especially for fans of Harrison Ford.  They won’t remember Firewall the way they do 1993’s The Fugitive, but it’s still something.

5 of 10
C+

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Updated:  Saturday, November 02, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Unleashed" is Brutal (Happy B'day, Bob Hoskins)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 74 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Unleashed (2005) – USA title
Running time:  102 minutes (1 hour, 42 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violent content, language, and some sexuality/nudity
DIRECTOR:  Louis Leterrier
WRITER:  Luc Besson
PRODUCERS:  Luc Besson, Steve Chasman, and Jet Li
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Pierre Morel
EDITOR:  Nicolas Trembasiewicz
COMPOSERS:  Neil Davidge, Massive Attack

DRAMA/MARTIAL ARTS/CRIME

Starring:  Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins, and Kerry Condon

The subject of this movie review is Unleashed, a 2005 martial arts and crime film from writer Luc Besson and director Louis Leterrier.  The film was a French, British, and American co-production and was originally released under the title, Danny the Dog, but released in the United States as Unleashed.  The film centers on a man who has been enslaved by the mob since childhood and trained to act like a human attack dog, but who one day escapes his captors and attempts to start a new life.

On and beneath the mean streets of Glasgow, Bart (Bob Hoskins) destroys those who won’t pay their debts to him.  The fiery gangster has a nearly unbeatable weapon he uses to encourage debtors to pay him what they owe, one he also uses to put would-be rivals in their place.  This secret weapon is Bart’s enforcer, Danny (Jet Li), a martial arts fighter of near supernatural ability.  Danny has been kept a prisoner, for all practical purposes, by his “Uncle Bart” since he was a boy.  “Danny the Dog” wears a collar and lives the simple existence that Bart has crudely and cruelly fashioned for him; Danny can’t even remember his origins.  When Bart pulls his collar off, that’s the signal for Danny to attack, and he will either maim or kill – always as Bart dictates.

However, a chance encounter with a soft-spoken, blind piano tuner, Sam (Morgan Freeman), offers Danny a chance to find out what kindness and compassion are.  When a gangland coup inadvertently frees him, Danny finds his way back to Sam and begins to live with the kindly old soul and his daughter, Victoria (Kerry Condon).  They open their home and hearts to him, but the past comes knocking back into Danny’s life.  Now, he has to fight the mob to protect his new family and keep from returning to his old one.

Luc Besson is the French director of flashy action films such as The Fifth Element, but he has also produced a number of martial arts inflected films, including The Transporter franchise.  He went directly to the Hong Kong source for his Jet Li vehicle, Danny the Dog, known for its American release as Unleashed.  [I do not know if this film was re-edited and shortened by a few minutes, in addition to the name change, for its U.S. release.]  Unleashed is one of the few really good English-language martial arts dramas to hit the screen since Bruce Lee’s films in the early 1970’s.  What makes this film a solid and compelling production in which the drama is equal to the martial arts sequences is having two fine dramatic actors:  Morgan Freeman, who is arguably the best American actor working today, and Bob Hoskins, a superb character actor who is too often an afterthought.

Freeman does his wise old black man routine, but this time with a twist.  Sam is a man of culture with impeccable taste.  He is a man who savors life, and his other senses so deeply drink of life that it is as if he weren’t blind.  Kind yet vigilant, he is the ultimate father figure – protector and encourager.  Hoskins gives his Bart many flavors.  On one hand, he plays the gangster as a petty and petulant hood looking for his share; on the other hand, he is all too human in his cruelty.  There isn’t a whiff of the supernatural or paranormal about what Bart does; he is just a bad man.

Jet Li is the star, and even Jet fans like myself must face up to the fact that Li isn’t a great actor when he has to speak English.  He is, however, a great performer regardless of the language he speaks.  Those all-around, all-star abilities that a movie star must have – a blend of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual – he has.  Li lights up the screen every time he’s on, and he always draws attention to himself, no matter how many good actors may be on screen with him.  A human dynamo, Jet Li is truly a martial artist and a film artist.

Unleashed is quite good, but falters in the end – letting the drama whither on the vine so that Li and his adversaries can have their big, final confrontation, and what a confrontation it is.  The film plays at being an epic, but Besson’s script can’t be bothered with developing conflicts and motivations; we’re here to see Li fight and the script focuses on giving us that.  Watching that final battle makes me wonder when Li is going to get his “Crouching Tiger,” but in the meantime, we can enjoy Li’s best English language effort… yet.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Updated:  Saturday, October 26, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

-------------------------

Review: "The Devil's Rejects" a Different Kind of Crime Flick

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 79 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Devil’s Rejects (2005)
Running time:  101 minutes (1hour, 41 minutes)
MPAA – R for sadistic violence, strong sexual content, language, and drug use
DIRECTOR:  Rob Zombie
WRITER:  Rob Zombie (based upon his characters)
PRODUCERS:  Mike Elliot, Andy Gould, Marco Mehlitz, Michael Ohoven, and Rob Zombie
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Phil Parmet (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Glenn Garland
COMPOSER:  Tyler Bates

HORROR/CRIME/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring:  Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, William Forsythe, Ken Foree, Matthew McGrory, Leslie Easterbrook, Geoffrey Lewis, Priscilla Barnes, Dave Sheridan, Ken Norby, Lew Temple, Danny Trejo, Diamond Dallas Page, and Tom Towles

The subject of this movie review is The Devil’s Rejects, a 2005 horror thriller and crime film from director Rob Zombie.  The film is a sequel to Zombie’s 2003 film, House of 1000 Corpses.  In the new film, the villains of the first movie are now seen as anti-hero types on the run from the law.

The Firefly Family or, as they call themselves, The Devil’s Rejects, a band of sadistic killers, wake up one morning to find their isolated farm hideout ambushed by the vengeful Sheriff John Quincy Wydell (William Forsythe) and a posse of his deputies.  With guns blazing, only Otis B. Driftwood (Bill Moseley) and his sister Baby Firefly (Sheri Moon Zombie) escape the barrage of bullets unharmed.

The duo hide out in an isolated desert motel waiting to be joined by another murderous relative, the killer clown, Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), killing whoever stands in their way or angers them.  However, as the body count soars, Sheriff Wydell, seeking revenge for the Rejects’ murder of his brother, George Wydell (Tom Towles), decides to take matters into his own hands and begins a private and violent war against The Devil’s Rejects outside the jurisdiction of the law.

The Devil’s Rejects is Rob Zombie’s sequel to his controversial 2003 indie hit, House of 1000 Corpses.  Rejects is structurally better in terms of narrative flow and writing, and Zombie sprinkles his cast with a collection of character actors known either for their roles in violent action movies or for their cult status in TV and film.  Among them include Priscilla Barnes, who is best remembered as “Terri Allen,” the third and final blonde roommate on the popular late 70’s/early 80’s television sitcom, “Three’s Company,”  and Ken Foree, who was “Peter,” one of the four human survivors trapped in a shopping mall in the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead.

In fact, Zombie designed his film to look like one of those violent crime thrillers that were synonymous with 70’s cinema.  Even going back to the first film, this franchise was as much Deliverance as it was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  The film’s opening sequence, a bullet-laden shootout, is as good as any Hong Kong crime film and is as intense as the big shootout in Michael Mann’s Heat – though much shorter.  Zombie’s film is silly, sadistic, and unabashedly subversive.  While the film and its characters’ antics (both the “hero” and the “villains are brutal and vicious assholes) get old after awhile, Zombie doesn’t commit the same flawed, artistic pretensions he did in House of 1000 Corpses.

His film is gloriously and rebelliously a bloody, gore-laden, crime film about bad-asses headed for a showdown.  There are a few scenes and sequences in this film that true film fans cannot and must not miss.  Those who can take the buckets of blood, F-bombs (several hundred), and atrocious murders will find The Devil Rejects a welcomed respite from the highly-polished polished movies that currently pass for Hollywood’s version what a gritty crime flick is.

6 of 10
B

Monday, April 17, 2006

Updated:  Sunday, October 20, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Phantom Lady" is for Fans of the Genre (Remembering Franchot Tone)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 79 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Phantom Lady (1944) – Black and White
Running time:  87 minutes (1 hour, 27 minutes)
DIRECTOR:  Robert Soidmak
WRITER:  Bernard C. Schoenfeld (from a novel by William Irish)
PRODUCER:  Joan Harrison (associate producer)
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Woody Bredell
EDITOR:  Arthur Hilton
COMPOSER:  Hans J. Salter

CRIME/FILM-NOIR/MYSTERY with elements of a drama, romance, and thriller

Starring:  Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Aurora, Thomas Gomez, Fay Helm, and Elisha Cook, Jr.

The subject of this movie review is Phantom Lady, a 1944 film noir and crime and mystery film from director Robert Soidmak.  This film is based on the 1942 crime novel, Phantom Lady, which was written by author Cornell Woolrich and published under his pseudonym, William Irish.  Phantom Lady the film follows a secretary who risks her life trying to find an elusive woman that may be able to prove that her boss did not murder his selfish wife.

Although photographing a film in black and white was not an artistic choice but a matter of being the only choice for many directors during Hollywood’s Golden Era of the 1930’s and 40’s, some directors took advantage of black and white cinematography to create some of the most compelling and beautiful looking films in movie history.  Case in point:  German-born director Robert Soidmak took a Universal Studios B film, Phantom Lady, and turned it into a work of black and white movie art.

In the film, unhappily married Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) takes a woman wearing a strange hat for a night on the town, but the woman insists that the two remain on a no-name basis for this one-night only date.  However, Scott’s wife is found strangled in their apartment, and Scott takes the rap for it because he has no alibi.  No matter how hard he and the police look, they can’t find the mysterious woman with whom he spent an anonymous date, and everyone whom Scott claims saw him and the woman together only remembers Scott being alone.

When Scott is convicted of the murder and sent to death row, his loyal secretary, Carol Richman (Ella Raines), and Inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez), the policeman who has a change of heart about Scott, begin another search to find the mystery woman.  Someone, however, doesn’t want them to find the woman and actively interferes in the case with deadly consequences.

Phantom Lady is mostly a curiosity; it has a few good moments, and while it falls far short of being forgettable, it’s not really memorable.  Siodmak and his cinematography Woody Bredell compose countless exquisite black and white shots, staging the first three quarters of the film as if it were a series of artsy photographs.  While the look is classic film noir, the meat of the story is low rent noir.  The story stumbles towards an end, and the hammy killer, replete with pseudo psychological reasons for his killer tendencies, doesn’t help.  The cast is strikingly B movie, being made of character actors – most of them solid, except for Ella Raines’ wildly inconsistent performance.  Look for a nice sequence featuring Elisha Cook, Jr. (the "gunsel" from The Maltese Falcon) and Ms. Raines that is rife with overt and almost raw sexual energy.  Overall, this is mainly for those who love film-noir mysteries and crime dramas, but there’s little else for the average-Joe film fan.

6 of 10
B

Updated:  Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Gun Crazy" is Crazy Cool (Remembering Dalton Trumbo)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 151 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Gun Crazy (1950) – B&W
Deadly is the Female (1949) – original title
Running time: 86 minutes (1 hour, 26 minutes)
DIRECTOR:  Joseph H. Lewis
WRITERS:  MacKinlay Kantor, Millard Kaufman, and Dalton Trumbo (based upon the short story by MacKinlay Kantor)
PRODUCERS:  Frank King and Maurice King
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Russell Harlan (director of photography)
EDITOR:  Harry Gerstad
COMPOSER:  Victor Young

FILM-NOIR/CRIME/DRAMA

Starring:  Peggy Cummings, John Dall, Barry Kroeger, Morris Carnovsky, Anabel Shaw, Harry Lewis, Nedrick Young, and Rusty Tamblyn with (cast that received no screen credit) David Bair, Paul Frison, and Trevor Bardette

The subject of this movie review is Gun Crazy, a 1950 film noir crime drama directed by Joseph H. Lewis.  The film was originally released under the title, Deadly is the Female, apparently sometime in 1949.  Gun Crazy is based on a short story written by MacKinlay Kantor, one of the film’s screenwriters.  Although Millard Kaufman is also credited as a screenwriter on Gun Crazy, he is not.  Kaufman was a “front writer,” meaning he allowed another screenwriter to use his name in order to work on the project.  The writer who used Kaufman’s name was Dalton Trumbo.

Trumbo was one of the “Hollywood 10.”  They were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to give testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) concerning Communist activity in Hollywood in the 1930s and early 1940s.  Trumbo and others were blacklisted from working on Hollywood film productions, or, if they did work on a production, their names were omitted from the film.  Trumbo is credited as the writer who reworked MacKinlay Kantor’s Gun Crazy story into a tale of a doomed love affair, but he could not receive a screen credit for his work on the film.

Gun Crazy the movie introduces Bart Tare (Rusty Tamblyn).  As a boy, Tare was obsessed with guns, although he was loathed to kill anything.  His obsession lands him in a reform school, but he retains the support of his family and especially of his friends, Dave Allister (Paul Frison) and Clyde Boston (Trevor Bardette).  After leaving the reform school and doing a stint in the army, adult Bart (John Dall) returns home to find that the adult Dave Allister (Nedrick Young) is now the editor of their hometown paper and that Clyde is now Sheriff Clyde Boston (Harry Lewis).

The trio attends a traveling carnival where Bart meets the love of his life, Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummings), a carnie trick pistol shooter, who, like Bart, is gun-obsessed.  The two run off and get married, but Laurie is a dangerous girl who wants the high life.  The legitimate jobs that poor Bart can get won’t pay enough to buy her all the things she wants.  He’s too in love to be without her, so it’s easy for her to talk him into a life of crime.  They commit a string of daring robberies across the country that eventually cause them to kill.  Hunted and desperate, Laurie and Bart head back home to Bart’s sister, Ruby (Anabel Shaw), and her family, but Sheriff Clyde and Dave are waiting for them.

Experts and students of the film genre known as Film-Noir consider Gun Crazy to be classic noir.  The film, released initially under the title, Deadly is the Female, is based upon novelist MacKinlay Kantor’s short story that was originally published in The Saturday Evening Post.  Gun Crazy was mostly forgotten until it fell into favor in France with film critics, especially the group of critics who would themselves one day become filmmakers and also become tied to a movement called French New Wave – the most famous of the lot being François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.  Godard’s 1960 film, Breathless, apparently references Gun Crazy.

Although many critics and reviewers have praised director Joseph H. Lewis for the film’s documentary feel, used especially during the robbery sequences, Lewis’ film is actually very stylized and expressionistic from a visual point of view.  Everything that is important for the audience to know about Laurie and Bart:  their roles, identities, thoughts, and feelings, as well as the roles of the people around them, Lewis tells through visual cues.  From the titled camera shots early in the film that suggest the mental state of young Bart to the sexualized first encounter of Bart and Laurie – all are stylish.  In fact, Lewis really pushes the idea of sex and the duo’s obsession with guns being interrelated.

The film has some good performances, a few exceptional – especially British actress Peggy Cummings as Laurie and, in two small roles, Barry Kroeger as Laurie’s carnival boss, Packett, and Morris Carnovsky as Judge Willoughby.  The script is a good blueprint for Lewis, but is soft on the dichotomy between Bart’s two worlds – Peggy and crime and Dave and Clyde.  Ultimately this film does fit the auteur theory that Truffaut, Godard, and their contemporaries pushed – the idea that the director is the film’s author.  Joseph H. Lewis takes the best that his cast and crew give him and turn Gun Crazy into a film of notorious love, sexual tension, lust, and the kind of violence that can come from two lovers’ obsessions.  This is definitely a precursor to Bonnie and Clyde.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, July 15, 2006

NOTES:
1998 National Film Preservation Board, USA:  National Film Registry

Updated: Tuesday, September 10, 2013

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: Halle Berry is Good in "The Call"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 60 (of 2013) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Call (2013)
Running time:  94 minutes (1 hour, 34 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence, disturbing content and some language
DIRECTOR:  Brad Anderson
WRITERS:  Richard D'Ovidio; from a story by Richard D'Ovidio, Nicole D'Ovidio, and Jon Bokenkamp
PRODUCERS:  Bradley Gallo, Jeffrey Graup, Michael A. Helfant, Michael Luisi, and Robert Stein
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Tom Yatsko
EDITOR:  Avi Youabian
COMPOSER:  John Debney

THRILLER/CRIME with elements of action

Starring:  Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Morris Chestnut, Michael Eklund, David Otunga, Michael Imperioli, Justina Machado, Jose Zuniga, Roma Maffia, Evie Louise Thompson, Denise Dowse, Ella Rae Peck, Jenna Lamia, and Ross Gallo

The Call is a 2013 thriller and crime film starring Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin.  The film follows a veteran 911 operator who takes an emergency call from a teenaged girl who has just been abducted.

The film focuses on Jordan Turner (Halle Berry), a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) veteran 9-1-1 operator.  One evening, Jordan takes a 911 call from Leah Templeton (Evie Louise Thompson), a frightened teenager, when tragedy strikes.  Six months later, Jordan is now a trainer of new 911 operators, when she is forced to become an operator again after an inexperienced operator takes a 911 call she cannot handle.  Back in a situation she had hoped to avoid, Jordan must help Casey Weldon (Abigail Breslin), a teen girl who has just been abducted.  As Jordan tries to work with Casey, she realizes that a terror from her past has unexpectedly returned.

After watching The Call, which I greatly enjoyed, I realized that Halle Berry is at her best as an actress when the characters she is playing are in a bad place.  When Halle’s characters are being menaced (Gothika) or when they are living life on the edge (Monster’s Ball), Halle has a hit movie or critically acclaimed film.  Well, The Call features Halle played both – a tormented woman seemingly living on the edge of sanity.  Jordan Turner is menaced by the fact that a teen girl has been abducted by a terrible human being, and she is living on the edge as guilt eats away at her professional life.

The Call received what can be described as mixed reviews, but it was a hit.  I am giving it a very good review, and it is a hit with me.  I can see myself watching this again – in its entirety or in parts – whenever it starts appearing on basic cable channels or on local over-the-air television.

Abigail Breslin is quite good as the victim, Casey Weldon, being hysterically frightened or righteously angry, whichever a particular scene requires.  Breslin does not come across as the typical “missing white girl,” pure fluffy innocence and absolute virginal whiteness.

The Call has some holes in the plot.  The characters make some wrongheaded decisions, even when not under duress.  You have to really suspend disbelief because you know real people might have made smarter choices.  The big hole, however, is the villain.  He’s like a crystal meth-addled version of Hannibal Lector, which makes The Call’s last act sometimes seem like a cheesy copy of the last act of Silence of the Lambs.

Still, this is mostly good stuff.  Like Taken, The Call is a compact and mean little thriller that is determined to punch the audience to attention.  Halle Berry needs to do movies like The Call more often.

7 of 10
B+

Sunday, September 01, 2013


The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

-----------------------