FILM REVIEW OF ''ABOVE THE LAW" (1988)

Steven Seagal looks emaciated in director Andrew Davis’ hard boiled crime thriller “Above the Law,” (*** out of ****) co-starring skull-faced Hollywood heavy Henry Silva as a knife-wielding psycho.  Reportedly, Seagal broke into the film business because one of his students, the highly respected Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz, made it happen. “Above the Law” qualifies as a formulaic law and order epic about narcotics smuggling and an assassination attempt on an incorruptible U.S. Senator.  Most of the action takes place in Chicago with Seagal defeating the loathesome villains with his usual brand of aggressive tenacity.  Seagal uses Aikiko on them when he isn’t swapping lead. The title refers to nobody being immune from justice.  Ironically, Davis emphasizes this point with newsreel footage of U.S. President Richard Nixon quoting Abraham Lincoln on the subject. Remember Nixon was the Republican who resigned in disgrace over the Watergate Scandal.  The Andrew Davis & Steven Seagal screenplay features more autobiographical material about the martial arts star than any of his other epics.  Indeed, “Above the Law” provides a glimpse of Seagal as a youngster with several genuine pictures of the actor.  Composer David Michael Frank betrays the late 1980s origins of “Above the Love” with his cheesy B-movie score.  Nothing surprising occurs as our stalwart hero tackles the villains with a vengeance.  The villains are merciless dastards, but Nico cuts them little slack.  As it turns out, the CIA has ties with organized crime. 

Making his motion picture debut, Seagal casts himself as an Italian-American born in Palermo, Italy, who immigrated to America at age seven.  He saw a martial arts demonstration at a baseball game later on when he was a teenager. Company agent Nelson Fox (Chelcie Ross of “Major League”) initially recruited Nicolo ‘Nico’ Toscani into the CIA. Before the Agency approached him at an Embassy function in Tokyo, Nico had studied and taught martial arts in Japan.  Our naïve protagonist totes an M-16 along the border of Vietnam and Cambodia on assist and observe missions. He witnesses some things that he should haven’t seen.  “Above the Law” gets off to a good start as Nico encounters Colonel Kurt Zagon (Henry Silva of “The Hills Run Red”) as the latter is interrogating a native in the jungle.  Somebody, it seems, has been tampering with Zagon’s opium.  Our hero doesn't understand what any of this has to do with acquiring intelligence about the enemy. Nico and Zagon clash, setting up expectations for a gory finale about an hour later.  

The action shifts years later to contemporary Chicago.  Toscani has a wife Sara (Sharon Stone of “Basic Instinct”), and they have just attended the communion of their first child  Giuliano.  Nico’s pals on the force laugh about him for having more relatives under federal indictment than any other cop in Chicago.  When he isn’t patrolling the streets, Detective Sergeant Tosconi takes care of personal business relating to the disappearance of his attractive young niece.  Seagal’s first cinematic fight takes place in a bar as he is searching for her.  Even the bartender knows what to expect when Nico enters.  “This ain’t nothing but trouble coming in my place tonight,” he observes with dread.  Nico gets a tip from the low-life, Alex (Christopher Peditto), who was getting his niece hopped up on drugs.  Alex doesn't want to go to jail so he babbles about a hooker and a cocaine lawyer setting up a deal.  Nico slaps him around enough until he provides a name.  Nico is the kind of cop who isn’t above breaking the rules.  He eavesdrops via a wiretap on a conversation between a couple of Columbians. He gets wind of a shipment arriving in an engine block at the Fulton Meat Market. Later, at the market, the Feds blow the case for them and Nico chases the villains in their car on foot.  He throws himself in front of their Lincoln and tumbles across the hood and atop the roof.  After they blow some holes in the roof, Nico smashes a passenger window and clamps a hand onto Tony Salvano, one of the lawyers.  This is a reasonably suspenseful scene.  Nico is shown spread-eagle clinging to the roof of the Lincoln while the driver swerves in an effort to dislodge him.  Eventually, the driver obeys his boss and pulls over. Afterward, Nico and his buddy Detective Lukich (Ron Dean of "Code of Silence") take apart the engine block.  Instead of narcotics, they discover several packages of C-4 explosives.  The Feds arrest Tony Salvano, but they let him off the hook because he is a government snitch.

  

After FBI agent Neeley releases Salvano and his driver, they check out St. Mary’s Church where Nico has attended.  While they are in the church, , Father Gennaro (Joe V. Greco) introduces Nico and Jackson to Father Tomasino and his refugees who are hiding in the basement of the church.  The next time Nico shows up for church, a bomb goes off.  The Father delivers a message about knowing the truth.  “Our leaders tell us and talk to us about them and us.  But almighty God talks to us about all mankind as one.  Now, we have an obligation to find out what is the truth.  We need to study.  We need to question.  We need to read and we need to find out what they are doing in our name.  And we must support those brave souls who seek the truth.”  Not long after the sermon, a woman departs the sanctuary.  Nico spots a suspicious sack moments before it explodes and kills Father Gennaro.  Later, Nico discovers that the blast was meant for Father Tomasino.  The blast kills Father Gennaro.  After the explosion, a carload of thugs tries to assault Nico and he shows them his stuff.

Afterward, the Feds come down hard on Nico and persuade the Chicago Police Department to suspend him.  He surrenders his gun and badge.  This doesn’t prevent Nico from carrying out his own investigation.  Nico meets Fox on a skyscraper.  We learn that Zagon has a four thousand acre ranch in Costa Rica.  Zagon wanted Senator Ernst Harrison assassinated because he was going to expose their plans to invade Nicaragua using cocaine money.  As it turns out, Father Tomasino learned about it while in Nicaragua and Zagon fears that he may have told the senator.  Zagon doesn’t want to kill the senator is word has been leaked about it.  Nelson holds Nico at gunpoint about the same time that Zagon and his cronies arrive in an underground garage.  A gunfight erupts and the bartender kills Nelson who slides Nico his gun.  More shots are fired and Salvano is hit.  Nico backs a car into Salvano and runs the car half out of the high rise parking lot so Salvano plunges onto the elevated railway and is electrocuted to death.  Zagon and his thugs pursue Nico in another car.  They run Nico down, pick up him, and prepare to torture him. Nico surprises them, breaks through his restraints, and devastating them.  He kills two with a shotgun and breaks Zagon’s arm when he threatens him with a knife.  Afterward. He snaps Zagon’s neck.  Later, Senator Harrison drops by Nico’s house and thanks him.  Apparently, Nico appears before Congress as “Above the Law” concludes with his testimony.  “Gentlemen, whenever you have a group of individuals who are beyond any investigation who can manipulate the press, judges, members of our Congress, you’re always gonna have within our government those who are above the law.”

FILM REVIEW OF ''COLOMBIANA" (2011)

French writer, producer, and director Luc Besson reinvented the killer chick flick genre back in 1990 with his stylist shoot’em up “La Femme Nikita.” Before “La Femme Nikita” illuminated screens, the best killer chick flicks came from a variety of directors, actresses, and genres. Low-budget, indie director Ted V. Mikels helmed “The Doll Squad” (1973) and “Ten Violent Women” (1982). African-American actress Pam Grier empowered women in such B-movie classics as “Big Doll House” (1971), “Coffy” (1973), “Foxy Brown” (1974), and “Friday Foster” (1975). In 1973, future Nancy Reagan astrologer Joyce Jillson starred in “Super Chick” as an airline attendant named Tara B. True who held a black belt in karate and thwarted a jet hijacking. Another African-American actress Tamara Dobson headlined “Cleopatra Jones” (1973) and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold” (1975). Most of these movies drew their inspiration from Asian actioneers where women wielded lethal weapons without a qualm, like “Female Demon Ohyaku” (1968), “Okatsu the Fugitive” (1969), “Quick-draw Okatsu” (1969), “Blind Woman's Curse” (1970) and “Lady Snowblood” (1971). At the same time, the Japanese produced the “Zero Woman” cycle of shoot’em ups in the Pinky Violence Collection featuring: “Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess” (1971) “Girl Boss Guerilla” (1972) , “Criminal Woman: Killing Melody” (1973), and "Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom" (1973). Before these Asian costume thrillers and the occasional American crime melodrama, like "The Violent Years," only denim-clad dames in horse opera such as “Johnny Guitar” (1954), “Two-Gun Lady” (1955), “Gunslinger” (1956), and “Forty Guns” (1957) were allowed to shoot and kill if the occasion required.

“La Femme Nikita” propelled the genre into the 1990s, but focused primarily on contemporary professional women armed to the hilt with modern firepower. Not-surprisingly, clones proliferated: “Tank Girl” (1995), “Cherry” (2000), “The Silencer” (2000), and “Thelma and Louise (1991). In “La Femme Nikita,” the eponymous anti-heroine was a convicted dame slated for execution who received a second chance at life if she performed executions for the government. Besson’s charismatic thriller starred newcomer Anne Parillaud and spawned a Hollywood remake, “Point of No Return” with Bridget Fonda as well as a Hong Kong version in director Stephen Shin's “Black Cat” (1991) and its sequel "Black Cat 2" (1997) with Jade Leung. Later, Besson made “The Professional” (1994) where an expert hit man, Jean Reno, taught a young girl, Natalie Portman, to how to kill the dastards who had murdered her parents. A cable television series “La Femme Nikita” with Peta Wilson followed; it aired from 1997 to 2001. In 2010, another version of “La Femme Nikita” hit the small screen with Maggie Q cast in “Nikita.”

Cleverly, Besson has recycled some of the best scenes from both “La Femme Nikita” and “The Professional” to make “Colombiana” (***1/2 out of ****), starring Zoe Saldana of "Avatar" as a sympathetic but indestructible female assassin. As one thug warns his companions, when Colombiana materializes, it is too late to take action and survive. Make no mistake; the filmmakers treat the theme of female empowerment in this seasoned but Spartan saga with few surprises but a surplus of sizzle. If you’ve seen either “La Femme Nikita” and/or “The Professional,” you can spot the inspiration for “Colombiana.” An early scene in “La Femme Nikita” depicts the heroine plunging a pencil into a policeman’s hand. Similarly, an early scene in “Colombiana” shows our young heroine stabbing a scumbag villain and pinning his hand to a table while she makes good her escape. No matter how derivative this suspenseful, high-octane, white-knuckled epic is, “Transporter 3” director Olivier Megaton compensates with picturesque staging, a cast with provocative faces, and atmospheric locales. "Colombiana" is grueling, gritty, with a lot of get-up-and-go.

Initially, “Colombiana” opens in Bogotá, Columbia, 1992. Ten-year old Cataleya Restrepo (newcomer Amanda Stenberg) watches as the henchmen of a Colombian crime cartel murder her mother and father. It seems that her father tries to retire from the syndicate. Treacherous Don Luis (Beto Benites of "Hermano") allows him to leave his heavily-guarded premises before he issues a contract. Luis’ right-hand man, Marco (Jordi Molla of “Blow”), tries to capture Cataleya because she possesses a microchip crammed with incriminating evidence that her father gave her as a bargaining chip for a passport. Cataleya's father tells her that the microchip is her passport to America. The agile girl leads the slimy Marco and his machine-gun toting mob on an adrenaline-laced foot chase through Bogotá. When she isn't scaling buildings, Cataleya crashes through flimsy roof-tops and recovers in the nick of time. Ultimately, she scrambles away from Marco and his army by diving into an underground sewer. The elusive Cataleya enters the United States, cuts a deal with the U.S. authorities, and hands them all the information on the Luis’ gang. Not long afterward, she escapes from U.S. authorities and catches a bus for Chicago, Illinois, to see her Uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis of “Training Day”) explore revenge as an option. When she meets Emilio, Cataleya confides in him that she once wanted to be a warrior princess like the TV heroine Xena. Now, she wants only to be a killer.

A criminal himself, Emilio lets the young girl sleep in his late son’s room. He trains her to be a contract assassin. In one great scene, Emilio explains that even contract assassins—if they plan to survive more than five years—must attend public school. Emilio assures her that he can make a top-notch assassin out of her, but she has got to have the intelligence level of a high school graduate. Besson and "Transporter" co-scripter Robert Mark Kamen fast-forward the plot 15 years later. Cataleya has become a svelte killing machine who loves to dress in skimpy clothing. She has discovered to her chagrin that the CIA has taken Don Luis into protective custody. Besson and Kamen make sure that nobody is too easy for their heroine. Nevertheless, the Central Intelligence Agency allows Luis to continue his business as usual. Neither the CIA nor the FBI, however, can thwart Cataleya when she goes into action against them.

This PG-13 rated, 108-minute epic boils down to a episodic narrative with Cataleya icing one individual at a time until she works her way down to Marco. After she kills a victim, our heroine uses lipstick to sketch a native South American orchid called 'cattleya' on the corpse's chest to remind Don Luis that he is her prime target. Actually, Cataleya was named after this flower. The elaborate hit that our heroine carries out in a high security jail resembles the kind of far-fetched antics that occur in Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible" franchise. The way that Cataleya lands behind bar to terminate her prey is blunt and to the point. When Cataleya isn’t dodging Don Luis’ trigger-happy henchmen, she must keep a step ahead of a tenacious FBI agent, Ross (Lennie James of “The Next Three Days”) who believes that a man is responsible for the murder rampage. Cataleya lets her romantic relationship with an artist, Danny (Michael Vartan of “Alias”), interfere with her plans. Danny has no clue about her line of work, until he exposes her quite by accident to the villains. The scene where the FBI and a SWAT team surround Cataleya’s safe house generates considerable tension.

“Colombiana” qualifies as an outlandish, audacious exercise in suspense and tension that benefits from Zoe Saldana’s gravity-defying performance and helmer Olivier Megaton’s slam-bang action scenes.

FILM REVIEW OF ''LITTLE FOCKERS'' (2010)

After "Austin Powers" helmer Jay Roach made the first two Mike Myers retro-1960s spy spoofs, he made a completely different comedy "Meet the Parents" (2000) that spawned another profitable big-ticket franchise. Roach followed up the hilarious “Parents” with an even bigger and funnier sequel "Meet the Fockers" (2004) which coined nearly $300-million at the box office. These two lowest common denominator farces focused on the foul-ups that a WASP-Jewish couple made as they sought to accommodate their diametrically-opposite in-laws. The raunchy wit of Roach and his scribes and the terrific performances of Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller respectively as patriarch and prospective son-in-law fueled the humor. Now, Roach has handed “Little Fockers” (** out of ****) and the franchise over to "American Pie" director Paul Weitz. As talented as Weitz is, he lacks Roach's sense of humor. Indeed, Universal Studios had to negotiate with co-star Dustin Hoffman to retain his services for this largely lackluster sequel. Reportedly, Hoffman hated the soporific screenplay and lamented Roach's departure. Nevertheless, the “Rain Man” star showed up for six scenes. One major advantage of “Little Fockers” is that Universal lured back the original cast. You can always tell when a franchise is falling apart by the absence of original cast members. The filmmakers devote a large part of their 98 minute running time to the logistics of shuffling characters in and out of the complicated story, particularly the peripheral characters. Owen Wilson, Barbara Streisand, and Dustin Hoffman reappear, but they occupy strictly supporting roles.

Primarily, "Little Fockers" amounts to a fair-to-middling farce with a shortage of gross-out gags. Indeed, it pales by comparison with the zany original and the laugh riot sequel that featured a surfeit of infantile humor. The projectile vomit scene and the penile injection scene are the funniest scenes in this bland sequel. Sadly, "Meet the Fockers" suffers from one of its own comic plot devices--erectile-dysfunction--because it is hard-up for humor. “Meet the Parents” scenarist John Hamburg and newcomer Larry Stuckey spend more time on the complications than the comedy of errors. Predictably, they exploit the obscene-sounding surname of Ben Stiller's character for standard snickers. Meanwhile, they have contrived yet another lame confrontation between a straight-faced but scowling Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller's sympathetic but stumbling schlemiel. Mind you, De Niro and Stiller are still very good as mortal enemies.

The biggest difference between “Little Fockers” and the two earlier films is that Gaylord Focker (Ben Stiller of “Tropic Thunder”) and Pam (Teri Polo of “The Beacon”) are married now and living in Chicago with twins, a daughter and son, Samantha (Daisy Tahan) and Henry (Colin Baiocchi), who are going to celebrate their fifth birthday. Gregg, as he prefers to be called, has landed an administrative position at a Chicago Hospital. This time around gimlet-eyed, former CIA agent Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro of “Taxi Driver”) tries to bust his son-in-law for an extramarital affair with Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba of “Machete”), a flirtatious prescription drug saleslady. She tools around in a red sports car with ‘Rx Grrrl’ on her license tag. Scenarists Hamburg and Stuckey are following up on the health-care minded lead of the recent Viagra comedy “Love and Other Drugs” with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway. Hamburg and Stuckey combine the erectile-dysfunction issue with Jack’s weak heart condition. The erectile-dysfunction medicine here is touted as user friendly for heart patients. Jack suffers a mild heart attack, but survives it by improvising his own defibrillation paddles. Meantime, the first time that drug rep Andi meets Gregg, she likes him. When an unhappy African-American patient protests about the way that Nurse Louis (Kevin Hart of “Soul Plane”) is giving him an enema, Andi snaps on the gloves happily to help and Gregg lends a hand. Everything that they say as they administer the enema is laden with sexual innuendo. Nurse Louis is grinning in the background, while the patient is swooning. Of course, Andi becomes infatuated with Gregg and wants him to serve as a spokesman for her company. Gregg and Pam, it seems, are living with Jack and Dina (Blythe Danner) because they are having their house renovated.

This part of “Little Fockers” dovetails with Gregg and Pam’s marriage. Gregg’s mom, therapist Roz Focker (Barbara Streisand), who hosts her own talk show “Sexpress Yourself,” discusses how child rearing often interferes with a couple’s sex life. Sometimes, she says, this complication drives the man to cheat. When Jack spots the samples of the erectile-dysfunction medicine "Sustengo" in a closet, he concludes that Gregg is up to something. Gregg wants to keep his business dealings with Andi a secret because he is trying to finance the remodeling of his suburban home, and he doesn’t want anybody to know where he is getting the money. Not surprisingly, Jack interprets things the wrong way. “Little Fockers” is basically another comedy of errors. Weitz and his scenarists bring Pam’s old flame, Kevin Rawley (Owen Wilson of “Marley and Me”) back into the action because Jack is having doubts that Gregg is best for Pam. Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) is off cavorting in Seville, Spain, learning how to dance the flamenco dance because it promotes sexual health.

This uninspired three-quel qualifies as a potboiler. The complications are basically Jack spying on Gregg again, and Gregg struggling to be a responsible breadwinner without confiding in Jack. Weitz and company tack on another ineffectual subplot about the Fockers enrolling the twins in an upper-scale kindergarten, the Early Human School, that isn‘t silly enough to be funny. Actress Laura Dern plays Prudence, the head mistress who interviews both the parents and children. Pam gets sick and cannot attend the tour day, so Gregg takes along ever inquisitive Jack. Naturally, Prudence leaps to the wrong conclusion that Gregg and Jack are a gay couple. Ironically, the title suggests that the twins will drive the story. Alas, the twins remain just as peripheral as Bernie, Roz, Kevin, and Dina. “Little Fockers” is too marginal to be anything but a rental.