Review: Hawke, Fishburne Carry "Assault on Precinct 13" Remake (Happy B'day, Ethan Hawke)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 90 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)
Running time: 109 minutes (1 hour, 49 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence and language throughout, and for some drug content
DIRECTOR: Jean-François Richet
WRITER: James DeMonaco (based upon an earlier screenplay by John Carpenter)
PRODUCERS: Pascal Caucheteux, Jeffrey Silver, and Stephane Sperry
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert Gantz
EDITOR: Bill Pankow
COMPOSER: Graeme Revell

ACTION/THRILLER/CRIME (GANGSTER)

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, John Leguizamo, Drea de Matteo, Gabriel Byrne, Brian Dennehy, Jeffrey “Ja Rule” Atkins, Mario Bello, Aisha Hinds, Matt Craven, Dorian Harewood

Assault on Precinct 13, the 2005 remake of the 1976 John Carpenter film, may lack the social commentary of the original, but it is a very entertaining action thriller that doesn’t try to break new ground in the tale of cops and criminals who must temporarily unite for their mutual survival. This new Assault on Precinct 13 is a by-the-books Hollywood effort that doesn’t throw any curve balls and sticks close to the original. The only thing the filmmakers wanted to go out on a limb for was to feature lots of gunshot wounds and even more kill shots to human heads. This is true R-rated action, and the film is proud of it. The actual assault on the precinct is full of sound and fury and smoke and blood – perfect for people who like the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard franchises.

Precinct 13 is a soon-to-close police station, and its last day, New Year’s Eve, is a snowy one. Stuck with the duty of closing the station one last time is Sgt. Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke), who eight months earlier saw a drug bust go really bad and his two partners gunned down. He’s reluctant to be out on the street again, or so says his sexy therapist, Dr. Alex Sabian (Maria Bello). However, Jake is forced to again confront a heavy-duty assignment when a prison bus carrying four prisoners is forced by the intensifying snow storm to make a stop at Precinct 13. One of his new charges is the infamous Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), recently taken into custody after killing a cop.

All Roenick has with him at the precinct is a skeleton crew, which consists of Iris Ferry (Drea de Matteo), a secretary, and Jasper O’Shea (Brian Dennehy), a copy on the verge of retiring, and none of them know that Bishop was in league with a band of dirty cops, who recently turned on him. They don’t want Bishop to live long enough to reveal their corruption, so they launch an assault on Precinct 13 to kill Bishop, and they don’t want any witnesses surviving. Now, Jake, Jasper, Iris, and Dr. Sabian must join forces with Bishop and the three other criminals: Beck (John Leguizamo), Smiley (Ja Rule), and Anna (Aisha Hinds), if they want to see sunrise.

In the original film, the audience knew next to nothing about the cast, and even less about the gang laying siege to the isolated precinct. The new screenplay gives us plenty about Jake Roenick, ostensibly the hero, including his (self-perceived) professional failures, so that we might root for him to overcome his personal challenges and demons and rise to the occasion. In the end, nothing about any character here rings true. The selling point of this tale is that a tiny band of good guys and some criminals, who look good compared to the ones trying to kill them, are seemingly cut off from civilization and from help and they’re facing a large band of relentless foes with numbers and weapons on their side. If the movie can get us to picture ourselves with the outgunned, the filmmakers have won half the battle, which the makers of Assault on Precinct 13 did. However, they only win a little of the rest of the battle, just enough to win the war, but win ugly.

Laurence Fishburne is a dashing movie star with plenty of charisma, enough to make up for the fact that he doesn’t have matinee looks. His presence wins every frame that he’s in here, but that hampers the film because the usually good Ethan Hawke doesn’t seem up to the challenge of matching Fishburne. Hawke’s performance is either flat or shrill, with only a few moments of truth (to which I desperately clung). It’s best to view this film the way one might the original. Don’t think about the characters; focus on the plot (which conceptually has more holes in it than the precinct after the assault), and still more on the setting. They’re the winning combination that overcomes hamstrung characters and pick-up-a-paycheck acting.

6 of 10
B

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Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez to Star in "Getaway"

(Selena Gomez and Ethan Hawke in a photograph from Dark Castle Entertainment and After Dark Films' upcoming feature, Getaway.  Photo by Simon Varsano.)

Filming is Underway on “Getaway”

Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez and Jon Voight star in the thriller from Dark Castle Entertainment and After Dark Films

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Principal photography has begun on Dark Castle Entertainment and After Dark Films’ high-octane action thriller “Getaway.”

The film stars Academy Award® nominee Ethan Hawke (“Training Day”), actress and international music sensation Selena Gomez (“Wizards of Waverly Place”), and Academy Award® winner Jon Voight (“Coming Home,” the “National Treasure” films).

Courtney Solomon (“An American Haunting”) and Yaron Levy (director of photography on “Transit”) are teaming to direct “Getaway.” Solomon is also producing the film, together with Moshe Diamant and Chris Milburn. The executive producers are Joel Silver, Alan Zeman and Steve Richards. The screenplay is by Gregg Maxwell Parker and Sean Finegan, with the latter also serving as co-producer.

Ethan Hawke plays Brent Magna, a burned out race car driver who is thrust into a do-or-die mission behind the wheel when his wife is kidnapped. With Brent’s only ally a young hacker (Selena Gomez), his one hope of saving his wife is to follow the orders of the mysterious voice (Jon Voight) who’s watching his every move through cameras mounted on the car Brent’s driving.

The behind-the-scenes team includes production designer Nate Jones, editor Ryan Dufrene, and costume designer Irene Kotcheva.

“Getaway” began shooting on location in Sofia, Bulgaria. Future filming will take place in the United States.

The film will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

It Gets Ugly in Fine "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 24 (of 2008) by Leroy Douresseaux

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)
Running time: 117 minutes (1 hour, 57 minutes)
MPAA – R for a scene of strong graphic sexuality, nudity, violence, drug use, and language
DIRECTOR: Sidney Lumet
WRITER: Kelly Masterson
PRODUCERS: Michael Cerenzie, William S. Gilmore, Brian Linse, and Paul Parmar
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ron Fortunato
EDITOR: Tom Swartwout

CRIME/DRAMA

Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, Rosemary Harris, Aleksa Palladino, Amy Ryan, Michael Shannon, and Brian F. O’Byrne

Andrew “Andy” Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his brother, Henry “Hank” Hanson (Ethan Hawke), plot to rob their parents’ jewelry store, Hanson Jewelers. Hank is also sleeping with Andy’s wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei). Charles Hanson (Albert Finney) and his wife, Nanette (Rosemary Harris), have no idea what their prodigal sons are plotting. When the job goes horribly wrong, the botched robbery triggers off a series of events that sends the brothers, their associates, and their family towards a shattering climax.

Famed director Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon) was 82-years-old when he directed the riveting crime drama, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. [The title comes from the old Irish saying, “May you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you’re dead.”] Yet the five-time Oscar nominee for “Best Director” (and winner of an Honorary Oscar) seems as fresh today as he did half a century ago. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a mesmerizing, raw open wound that examines the murderous extents to which desperate people will go, the complicated dynamics of parent/child relationships, and sibling rivalries.

Much of Lumet’s reputation as a director is built around his ability to get intense, riveting, and memorable performances out of actors. Everyone in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is at the top of his game, even the smaller parts. The usually-fine Albert Finney surprises with a compelling performance that delivers a gut punch. The underrated Ethan Hawke subtly and slyly delivers Hank Hanson in a way that is as funny as it is heart-wrenching. It’s Hawke’s way of revealing how pathetic Hank is.

Philip Seymour Hoffman made 2007 a banner year for him by giving three superb performances in a diversity of roles (in such films as Charlie Wilson’s War and The Savages). Here, his Andy Hanson is a tightly-wound thief and addict capable of sincere emotion and unexpected emotional outbursts. Hoffman simply presents that in unique ways that enhance the drama rather than detract from it with a showy performance.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is similar to Fargo, Joel and Ethan Coen’s Oscar-winning 1996 film about a plot to kill family for money. Devil may lack Fargo’s dry wit, black humor, and wacky imagination, but Devil goes deeper into the dark heart of an angry family. Lumet and company really let the ugly be ugly.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Review: "Brooklyn's Finest" is Actually Not The Finest

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 52 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

Brooklyn’s Finest (2009)
Wide U.S. release: March 5, 2010
Running time: 132 minutes (2 hours, 12 minutes)
MPAA – R for bloody violence throughout, strong sexuality, nudity, drug content and pervasive language
DIRECTOR: Antoine Fuqua
WRITER: Michael C. Martin
PRODUCERS: Elie Cohn, Basil Iwanyk, John Langley, and John Thompson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Patrick Murguia
EDITOR: Barbara Tulliver

CRIME/DRAMA

Starring: Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes, Brian O’Byrne, Will Patton, Lili Taylor, Ellen Barkin, Jesse Williams, Shannon Kane, Lela Rochon, Ed Moran, Isiah Whitlock, Michael Kenneth Williams, Hassan Iniko Johnson, Jas Anderson and Vincent D’Onofrio

Ever watch a movie that just frustrates you because you want it to be better than it is because it should be better than it is? That’s Brooklyn’s Finest, a crime film from director Antoine Fuqua, an accomplished director of violent action films like Training Day and Tears of the Sun, which are aimed at guys who love violent action.

Brooklyn’s Finest follows three veteran New York cops struggling with right and wrong. Cynical, washed-up Edward “Eddie” Dugan (Richard Gere) stopped caring about the job or the rules years ago. Days from retirement, he finds himself overseeing rookies who will be assigned to tough neighborhoods. Detective Salvatore “Sal” Procida (Ethan Hawke) is desperate for money to support his growing family, so he starts taking money he finds during drug busts. Deeply religious, he struggles to reconcile his criminal deeds with his family’s needs, but with a down payment on a bigger house due, he plots his most dangerous cash-grab yet.

Clarence “Tango” Butler (Don Cheadle) is an undercover narcotics officer who hopes his latest assignment will earn him a promotion to detective and a desk job. However, he must betray Casanova “Caz” Phillips (Wesley Snipes), a prison buddy just released from prison on appeal of his conviction. A vulgar federal agent demands that Tango set up a drug deal that will assure Caz’s return to prison, but that causes Tango to be torn between his conflicting loyalties – the job and his friend. Eddie, Sal, and Tango converge on the Van Dyke housing projects of Brooklyn’s notorious Brownsville section where their lives will change forever.

Brooklyn’s Finest is a sprawling crime drama that offers good characters and a good setup, but it never really develops. The characters are the kind of stock players found in movies dealing with the New York City Police Department and Big Apple crime: cynical cops, dirty cops, vulgar cops, asshole cops, compromised cops, bureaucratic cops, arrogant federal agents, prostitutes, wannabe gangsters, and drug dealers. Plus, there are shootings – lots and lots of shootings. Although Brooklyn’s Finest is his first screenplay, writer Michael C. Martin actually seems as if he is going to do something grand, if not different, with this story and these characters. However, he eventually writes himself into a corner, where violent death is the only resolution, so the movie ends up seeming so predictable. Martin develops everything slowly, as if this were a pilot for a television series, when it really is a movie screenplay. Martin just builds and builds, and before the plot can thicken, it’s time for the story to end. And the only way left to end this is by using good old mister shoot ‘em up.

The performances by the three leads are good, if not great. Richard Gere is so real as the cynical, burned-out Eddie that the character seems weird and out of place. The best acting comes from the supporting players. Wesley Snipes is pitch perfect as the old dog gangsta; Snipes shows it in his face that Caz is tired and out of place among the younger, harder, and more brutal drug dealers. The talented Brian O’Byrne is excellent as the way too underutilized character, Officer Ronny Rosario. Ellen Barkin reminds us how good she is as the ball-busting Federal Agent Smith, a part Barkin plays as if she has a chip on shoulder and dynamite up her ass. Someone should give Smith her own movie because the disappointing Brooklyn’s Finest is not worthy of the character.

4 of 10
C

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

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Review: Denzel Washington Blew Minds with "Training Day"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 12 (of 2001) by Leroy Douresseaux

Training Day (2001)
Running time: 122 minutes (2 hours, 2 minutes)
MPAA – R for brutal violence, pervasive language, drug content and brief nudity
DIRECTOR: Antoine Fuqua
WRITER: David Ayer
PRODUCERS: Bobby Newmyer and Jeffrey Silver
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mauro Fiore (director of photography)
EDITOR: Conrad Buff
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/CRIME/THRILLER

Starring: Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Scott Glenn, Tom Berenger, Harris Yulin, Raymond J. Barry, Cliff Curtis, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Macy Gray, Charlotte Ayanna, and Eva Mendes

After not winning the Oscar for Best Actor 1999 for his portrayal of the noble but controversial Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (to the worthy Kevin Spacey), Denzel Washington may likely not earn even an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the thoroughly evil and corrupted L.A. cop Alonzo Harris in Training Day. [Actually, after I wrote this, Washington did earn both an Oscar nomination and a win for his portrayal of Harris – Leroy 2010/7/10.]

Training Day begins with Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), a young cop of 19 months, earns an assignment to the narcotics division under the tutelage of Harris. From the get go, Harris is rude and crude to Hoyt, and before long Harris takes Hoyt on a whirlwind tour of the seamy underbelly of L.A. County: gang neighborhoods, slums, drug dealing, and police corruption. But a recent miscue haunts Harris, and his attempt to get from under the cloud his carelessness has earned him brings the movie to its abrupt, brutal, and violent end. All the while, Hoyt struggles to maintain his law-abiding nature.

Washington is shocking, brilliant and intense as the dirty cop Harris. Known for playing clean policemen, upright detectives, and uplifting African-American heroes, Washington’s turn as a villain will wake people up to this artistic diverse resume. That he is one of the great actors of the last 15 years in not debatable. The passion that he brought to his role in The Hurricane, he brings here, and one can see passion in his eyes, in his gestures, and in the way he carries himself. It is the most invigorating character Washington has played since The Hurricane.

Hawke remains a player of mostly melancholy characters for which one can feel the deepest sympathy. He is an everyman with matinee idol good looks and charm, although it’s hard to accept his character late in the movie as Hoyt vengefully stalks Harris. He isn’t miscast; the movie just goes slightly awry, focusing on Harris’s evil rather than Hoyt’s coming of age as a policeman.

Antoine Fuqua (the director of the clumsy The Replacement Killers) brings the eye he used as a director of music videos to the film, but with the sensibility to follow a longer, more coherent story than is usually found in videos. Training Day’s pace is steady and breezy, and doesn’t start to stumble until the last quarter.

This isn’t entirely his fault. David Ayer, a rising screen writing star (U-571, The Fast and the Furious) convinces us until the last fifteen minutes or so of this film that Harris will get away with it. Harris’s ideology isn’t entirely unacceptable to mainstream audiences. If his believe system works and keeps the streets clean, most citizens would be happy as long as the could keep their hands clean and the truth buried so that they never have to deal with him and look the other way. It must be Ayers’s goody-two shoes nature that resolves things in the direction in which he does. It is sometimes nice when a movie eschews a happy ending, and the happy ending is usually positive, even when negative would have been more believable. This time the happy ending would have been the ugly truth, and this movie deserved a happy ending.

Not to reveal too many things, but with a deadline looming to save his life, Harris wouldn’t have stopped for a dalliance.

An entertaining cop flick, Training Day is good look at excellent work from a very talented actor, Washington. It may come across as harsh for those who like him as a romantic, good guy leading man, but it’s great for those who want a tour de force from a screen artist.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
2002 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Denzel Washington); 1 nomination: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Ethan Hawke)
2002 Golden Globes: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Denzel Washington)
2002 Black Reel Awards: 3 wins: “Black Reel Theatrical - Best Actor” (Denzel Washington), “Theatrical - Best Director” (Antoine Fuqua), and “Theatrical - Best Film;” 1 nominations: “Best Song” (Nelly for the song "#1")

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Review: "Daybreakers" Breaks Vampire Mold... Sort of

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 33 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

Daybreakers (2009)
Release date: January 8, 2010
Running time: 98 minutes (1 hour, 38 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong bloody violence, language and brief nudity
DIRECTORS: Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig
WRITERS: The Spierig Brothers
PRODUCERS: Chris Brown, Bryan Furst, and Sean Furst
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ben Nott
EDITOR: Matt Villa

HORROR/SCI-FI/ACTION

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman, Isabel Lucas, Vince Colosimo, Jay Laga’aia, Christopher Kirby, and Sam Neill

Daybreakers mixes new flavors and ingredients into the old blood that is vampire apocalypse movies. This U.S./Australian co-production has some fresh ideas and some bite to it, but ultimately, the filmmakers, The Spierig Brothers (Undead), seemed content to make another action movie, or at least focus on action.

In the film: by the year 2019, a vicious plague has transformed most of Earth’s population into vampires. With the human population down to five percent, the world is losing what is now its most precious resource – blood. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is a vampire and also a researcher for the corporation, Bromley Marks. Dalton is trying to create a blood substitute to answer the growing vampire food crisis because of the shrinking blood supply.

Dalton encounters a covert group of humans and their charismatic leader, Lionel “Elvis” Cormac (Willem Dafoe) and his right-hand woman, Audrey Bennett (Claudia Karvan). They are working on a way to turn vampires back into humans and have already made a remarkable discovery which may save the human race. However, Bromley Marks CEO, Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), has plans of his own for the future of the blood supply, and he is using Dalton’s brother, Frankie (Michael Dorman), as his thug.

As a narrative, Daybreakers comes together quite well. For what is essentially a vampire, B-movie, this film is thoughtfully shot and staged. It also has pretensions to be socially relevant and offers commentary on the current state of world affairs. Daybreakers’ vampire plague and Bromley Marks’ response to it are metaphors for corporate exploitation of human suffering and also all-consuming greed. Still, this movie often feels disjointed because the thoughtful character and social drama clash with the brutal fight scenes, fierce action scenes, and the occasional bloodshed, which comes in abrupt splatters like rude ejaculations.

Visually, that is OK for a science fiction film that emphasizes sudden violence and brutality, but the Spierig Brothers should have taken advantage of the complicated and well-conceived family dynamics they obviously took the time to create. Playing up the Dalton brothers’ relationship even more would have better served this film than some of the gunfight and vampire attack scenes.

On the other hand, a movie that is so unromantic about vampires can’t be all that bad. Plus, Daybreakers stars three actors that I have always thought have an alluring screen presence: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Sam Neill, and they didn’t disappoint me here. Daybreakers is fun and thoughtful; too bad it subverts its new ideas for old ideas – bloody violence piled upon more blood and violence.

5 of 10
B-

Friday, May 14, 2010

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Review: "Fast Food Nation" a Stomach-Turning Great Movie

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 50 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Fast Food Nation (2006)

Running time: 113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)

MPAA – R for disturbing images, strong sexuality, language, and drug content

DIRECTOR: Richard Linklater

WRITERS: Eric Schlosser and Richard Linklater (based upon the nonfiction book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser)

PRODUCERS: Jeremy Thomas and Malcolm McLaren

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lee Daniel

EDITOR: Sandra Adair

DRAMA

Starring: Patricia Arquette, Bobby Cannavale, Paul Dano, Frank Ertl, Luis Guzmán, Ethan Hawke, Ashley Johnson, Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofferson, Avril Lavigne, Esai Morales, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Lou Taylor Pucci, Ana Claudia Talancón, Wilmer Valderrama, and Bruce Willis

Richard Linklater’s film, Fast Food Nation, is a fictional take on Eric Schlosser’s 2001 best-selling nonfiction book of the same name. Like the book, the film critiques America’s fast-food industry, and the narrative covers everything involved in manufacturing, marketing, and selling hamburgers. Linklater was nominated for the “Golden Palm” at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival for his work in this movie.

The story takes place in and around the imaginary city of Cody, Colorado. It begins with Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear), a hotshot marketing guru at the fictional Mickey’s burger chain. Don arrives in Cody to investigate why there are contaminants in the frozen patties used to make, “The Big One,” Mickey’s best-selling hamburger. His visit takes him inside the bowels of their patty supplier, Uni-Globe Meat Packing, where undocumented workers toil in wretched conditions. As he visits strip malls, ranchers, and suppliers, and people recommended to him, Don doesn’t see nearly all the people who are connected to him and his company. He wonders what his investigation will make of all these perspectives because the fast-food world turns out to be fraught with more peril than he ever realized.

Richard Linklater achieves that rare feat of directing two great films released in the same year: the trippy, animated, sci-fi drama, A Scanner Darkly and the recent socio-political drama, Fast Food Nation. Both films examine flawed, but likeable people caught in larger dramas and dealing with forces of which they have no control or have much less than they think. Both films are at their best when Linklater allows the narratives (and audience) to hang out with an eclectic collection of flawed characters. In that, Nation has some similarities to Robert Altman’s Short Cuts and John Sayles’ Sunshine State. Fast Food Nation, however, deals with the immediate world in which we live today.

While it may seem as if Linklater and his co-writer Eric Schlosser, the writer of this movie’s source, are condemning Nation’s characters to hopelessness, this film is a rallying cry to all of us to wake up about the food we put into our bodies – both the food itself and how and who produces it. Although Nation isn’t merely a message film, it is informing us of our food culture, and Linklater and Schlosser allow the characters to inform us in concise, but rich and vibrant banter and debates. To that end, the filmmakers assembled a far-flung cast made of one bona fide Hollywood megastar (Bruce Willis), some well-known film and TV stars (Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, and Greg Kinnear), some acclaimed veteran actors, (Luis Guzmán and Kris Kristofferson), and some up and coming young talent (Paul Dano, Ashley Johnson, and Catalina Sandino Moreno). It’s obvious watching these earnest performances that the cast believes in this film, and each actor does his or her point to tie the various sub-plots and storylines together, so rather than something disjointed, we get a coherent multi-layered narrative.

Fast Food Nation will make you think about fast food, in particularly meat: the dangerous conditions in which meat packing workers toil; how the industry obtains these workers and then virtually enslave them; and how the animals that become our food are treated. Perhaps, Nation’s strongest point is revealing again the conditions in which these animals live and what food and drugs they are given. In a matter-of-fact, but engaging visual style, Linklater turns real world news into cinematic art – the most essential and important, important film in years.

9 of 10

A+

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

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