FILM REVIEW OF ''THE MAN WHO KILLED HITLER AND THEN THE BIGFOOT" (2018)

The title of a movie may sometimes reveal more about its plot than you need to know.  Freshman writer & director Robert D. Krzykowski's atmospheric, historical epic "The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot" (*** OUT OF ****), starring Sam Elliot as the titular protagonist, doesn't tell everything.  As the legendary huntsman Calvin Barr, Elliot plays the individual who infiltrated the ranks of the Third Reich and put lead through Hitler's head. "Poldark" star Aidan Turner credibly portrays the protagonist as a younger man in the World War II scenes. Happily, Turner bears a reasonable resemblance to what Sam Elliot might have looked like 50 years ago.  After all, Sam is pushing 75.  After the Hitler shooting, Elliot takes over from Turner as the older Barr for the 1980s.  Meantime, Krzykowski cuts back and forth between past and present storylines, and he displays nimble flair.  Everything considered, though he appears in perhaps half of the movie, Elliot's sturdy presence turns "The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot" into an intriguing, occasionally exciting, meditation on loneliness and heroism.  The scene where Barr penetrates Hitler's security and confronts the Führer is suspenseful. Even better is the unusual weapon our hero assembles from various inconspicuous personal items to shoot him.  The gun is reminiscent of the weapon wielded by Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond extravaganza "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974). Despite all his medals and bravery, our hero doesn't live in the lap of luxury.  Of course, nobody knows he killed Hitler.  The U.S. government covered up his audacious deed when the Third Reich replaced the Führer with an imposter!  Moreover, as each imposter perished, Barr explained the Nazis lined-up another to maintain the masquerade.  This kind of inventive plotting distinguishes this artsy, little, independently produced film.  The palatable authenticity that permeates "The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot" is contrary to most current films.  Fate constitutes a fickle thing for Calvin Barr as well as for the audience, but the movie never degenerates into a maudlin melodrama.

Good fortune has not favored Calvin Barr in his personal ambitions.  He bides his time contemplating the past. Barr keeps to himself unless he ventures out to his younger brother's barbershop for a trim.  Barr's congenial brother Ed (comedian Larry Miller of "Undercover Blues") is only too happy to give Calvin a haircut.  Sometimes, they go fishing and drift idly around in a boat on a serene lake, but never utter a word.  Calvin experiences flashbacks from the Hitler assassination throughout, reliving those white-knuckled moments.  Meantime, he eats breakfast with Ralphie, his pet Labrador Retriever, slipping him a fragment of link sausage under the table.  Calvin lives alone, and Krzykowski often shows him pondering a small wooden box.  Neither the significance nor the contents of the box is divulged, but it is enough for us to know that it contains something valuable to him.  Calvin's mysterious box is comparable to the enigmatic attaché case in "Pulp Fiction."  You can guess all you want, but Krzykowski neither affirms nor denies what lies within it.  When he least expects visitors, Calvin finds himself chatting with an FBI agent nicknamed Flag Pin (Ron Livingston of "Office Space") and a Canadian government official Maple Leaf (Rizwan Manji of "Charlie Wilson's War") who pitch him a preposterous proposition straight-out-of-a-science fiction saga. 

In Canada, health experts have learned the fabled creature Bigfoot is carrying a deadly plague which could wipe out mankind.  Every animal that Bigfoot has come into contact with has died an ugly death.  Miraculously, Calvin is immune to the creature's virus, so he enjoys a modicum of protection.  Flag Pin and Maple Leaf want him to enter a fiery arena about 50-miles in diameter in the Canadian wilderness and shoot the Bigfoot to death.  Initially reluctant to undertake such an outlandish mission, Calvin changes his mind at the last moment.  The creature Bigfoot is reminiscent of the apes at the dawn of time in Stanley Kubrick's original "2001: A Space Odyssey," but it isn't a schlocky B-movie monster.  Calvin reports back that the creature doesn't have big feet.  Nevertheless, this creature is clever, and it almost leads Calvin off the edge of a cliff.    Earlier, Calvin's encounter with thieves outside the bar in his home town turns ugly and violent.  These three dastards brandish knives and pistols and demand his keys and his wallet. The methodical way Calvin disarms them and leaves them sprawled senseless on the asphalt would prompt the heroes of "The Expendables" film franchise to high-five him with admiration.

Sam Elliot's performance is laden with dramatic gravitas.  Not every actor can play a seasoned killer who convinces us that he is not only lethal but also remorseful.  Elliot doesn't shrink from performing his own stunts, and the filmmakers thrust him into situations that few 75-year old men should experience.  One stunning long shot of Elliot scaling a mountain with his bare hands with his rifle strapped to his back reminds us that the journey of the hero is fraught with constant peril.  Krzykowski keeps the actor on his toes. Mind you, everything Krzykowski does here as a filmmaker clashes with the common wisdom of theatrical tentpole releases.  Krzykowski's film suffers somewhat from the pervasive sense of melancholy our stalwart, tight-lipped hero experiences.  Bridging the 1940s with the 1980s, Zach Passero's polished editing makes these drastically different scenes appear integrated.  As Calvin's younger version, Aiden Turner has a brief, bittersweet romance with the heroine Caitlin FitzGerald.  However, they are never shown sleeping together. Seriously efficient at his tracking and killing, Calvin Barr lacks the control over his personal life that he has attained over his prey in his professional life.  The actor cast as Hitler-- Joe Lucas--is a dead ringer for Herr Schicklgruber!  Altogether, "The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot" qualifies as a derivative, but above-average, character study with nuance about an individual who without question made sacrifices to serve his country. 

FILM REVIEW OF ''PACIFIC RIM" (2013)

FILM REVIEW OF ''PACIFIC RIM" (2013)

"Hellboy" director Guillermo del Toro and scenarist Travis Beacham have caught Michael Bay and his "Transformers" franchise napping with the theatrical release of "Pacific Rim" (*** OUT OF ****). This entertaining but formulaic hokum amalgamates science fiction with horror in an apocalyptic adventure epic that pits humans piloting giant robots against "Godzilla" type monsters from another dimension. Imagine "Godzilla" meets "Robot Jox" (1989), and you'll have a good idea what to expect from "Pacific Rim." When you aren't laughing yourself silly at the doomsday premise of mankind tangling with alien behemoths from another galaxy, you may find yourself caught up in the bombastic, larger-than-life action. Basically, "Pacific Rim" amounts to a slugfest between towering robots and amphibious leviathans that attack each other on both land and sea. Just because you haven't swamped your bathtub lately with a rubber ducky in one fist and a huge plastic robot in the other doesn't mean that you won't enjoy this boisterous Armageddon. Comparatively, between the heroic humans and the "Jurassic Park" influenced monsters, Del Toro creates more urban destruction than both "Marvel's Avengers" and DC's "Man of Steel." Skyscrapers topple like dominos, and gargantuan creatures rampage through several heavily populated Pacific rim properties like tornadoes. In the hands of a talent lesser than Del Toro, who also helmed "Blade 2," "Pacific Rim" might not have been so amusing. The film's biggest asset isn't the impressive CGI combatants, but its cheeky sense of humor. Meantime, the biggest problem this outlandish epic contends with is its largely unknown cast. Aside from veterans like Ron Pearlman and Idris Elba, who support rather than lead, nobody qualifies as a celebrity superstar. Charlie Hunnam has made one above-average thriller "Deadfall" and appeared in 70 episodes of the "Sons of Anarchy" television series as Jackson 'Jax' Teller. Anybody who liked Steve McQueen will notice a stunning resemblance between Hunnam and the "Bullitt" star. Hunnam has all of McQueen's physical movements down, but his hair looks a mite long. Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi plays Hunnam's feisty co-star, and they wind up sharing more than merely physical space in this rock 'em, sock 'em saga. The beauty of unknowns in a mega-budget movie like "Pacific Rim" is that you're never certain who is going to survive the fracas.

This fast-paced, live-wire, science fiction spectacle takes place about seven years from now in 2020. The worst thing that we face as a society then isn't suicidal terrorists. Instead, it's the Kaiju.  These massive, dinosaur-like, creatures from another dimension that emerge from a breach in the ocean floor to stomp the smithereens out of San Francisco, Manila, and Cabo San Lucas. Initially, mankind tried out conventional weapons on these supernatural mega-beasts. Unfortunately, more powerful weapons were required to repulse these pugnacious leviathans. All the scenes with the monsters trashing cities will evoke memories of the original Japanese Godzilla movies as well as the 1998 American remake starring Matthew Broderick. Eventually, mankind cooperates on a global basis and assembles huge, 250-foot tall, humanoid metal com-bots with cannons and lasers called ‘Jaegers.’ Two pilots in tandem operate these man-made monsters with each acting as opposing neural hemispheres. Like the monsters, the Jaegers can 'take a licking and keep on ticking' in the drink as well as on dry land. The pilots don space suits, wield their two minds as one in "Star Trek" mind-meld fashion, and control their robot from a sophisticated Wii platform built into the head-piece of the hulk. Two pilots are essential for a Jaeger because one pilot cannot perform the tasks mandatory without suffering long-term, nose-bleeding, side-effects. When these robots are prepared for combat, both pilots must establish a neural link between their minds, so their memories and consciousness are bonded together by inboard hardware. As it turns out, Earth succeeds in deterring these creatures. Nevertheless, the Kaiju haven't tossed in the celestial towel. They storm back for one final fracas, and the best of the Jaegers confront them in a life and death struggle in the north Alaskan Seas. Brothers Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff of "After Earth") and Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam of “Sons of Anarchy") wade into icy waters against the orders of their superior, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba of "Thor"), to save a fishing vessel from the Kaiju. This Kaiju has a surprise in store for them when it rips the head-piece off the Jaeger and pulls Raleigh's brother Yancy out. Stunned and injured during the toe-to-toe fray, Raleigh manages to bring the Jaeger home and quits the program. He is a hull of his former self now that his brother is gone. The Jaeger program isn't far from extinct itself. The authorities have decided walls are the answer to the threat posed by the Kaiju. Every metropolis on the Pacific rim sets out to erect impenetrable walls. Unfortunately, nobody told the Kaiju, and they smash through these immense walls as if they were built of Styrofoam. Stacker searches for Raleigh and finds him toiling on one of those walls. Later, he introduces him to Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), and they assure Raleigh he can drive another Jaeger. Stacker's scientists, Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day of "Horrible Bosses") and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman of "Layer Cake"), are furiously working on ways to destroy these creatures when Mako announces she is the ideal candidate to help Raleigh pilot a Jaeger. Stacker is initially hesitant to let her double- team with Raleigh, but she wins him over to her way of thinking. Stacker’s inspirational speech about “canceling the apocalypse” sounds reminiscent of the King’s “into the breach” speech in Shakespeare’s “Henry V, Act III, Scene I.”

"Pacific Rim" boasts more than just a bunch of robots battling prehistoric monsters. Braying like a jackass, Charlie Day steals the show as an insane scientist who resembles Christian Slater crossed with Rick Moranis. Burn Gorman and he have a field day playing psychotic scientists. At one point, Dr. Geiszler decides to mind-meld with a fragment of a Kaiju's brain and realizes that Stacker's strategy of using a Jaeger to drop a nuclear device down the Pacific Ocean portal from where the monsters hail from isn't going to succeed. "Pacific Rim" qualifies as a monster of a mash.