FILM REVIEW OF "GUTSHOT STRAIGHT" (2014)

"CSI" regular George Eads plays a snake-bitten Las Vegas gambler with a knack for getting himself knee-deep in trouble in "Gutshot Straight" (* OUT OF ****) named Jack. Eads makes a convincing but hopeless nobody, and he looks nothing like the sympathetic crime scene investigator that he portrays on the CBS-TV television series. Instead, he portrays the kind of character who you'd neither want to meet nor hang out with because he is a loser. Happily, "Death and Cremation" director Justin Steele surrounds him with a veteran cast of familiar tough-guys, including Stephen Lang, Vinnie Jones, Steven Seagal, and Ted Levine, that give the action a modicum of substance. Steele imbues this brooding 85-minute melodrama about a charismatic loser with a creepy, mysterious film noir flavor.

Down and out, owing just about everybody in Sin City, Jack (George Eads) runs into an older guy, Duffy (Stephen Lang of “Avatar”), at a strip club who makes him an appetitizing proposition: "How'd you like to make some dollars, enough dollars to keep you at the adult table for a long, long time." Naturally, our misbegotten protagonist could use plenty of dough. Taking Jack home to his palatial residence, Duffy tries to persuade him to make love with his wife, May (AnnaLynne McCord of "The Transporter 2"), but the scrupulous Jack displays considerable reluctance. Apparently, Jack doesn't like being told what to do. A brief physical struggle ensues between Jack and Duffy while May watches from the pool. During the fracas, Jack shoves Duffy, and Duffy's head strikes an object and the impact kills him. Jack didn't plan to murder Duffy, and he is pretty upset at the accidental turn of events. May and he stuff Duffy's corpse into the trunk of a Maserati, and Jack wanders off the next day in the brutal heat of Vegas to sleep it off in his Volvo that he cannot get to crank up. Jack is such a woebegone guy with so many problems that it is easy to see why an actor would love to fill in the gaps and play him. Ultimately, he isn't the kind of character that an audience wants to commune with for the length of any movie.

Later, Jack encounters Duffy's scummy brother Lewis (Ted Levine of "Silence of the Lambs") who is a notorious loan shark. Lewis proudly shows Jack his prized possession—the car that May used secretly to dispose of Duffy's body—and we learn that Lewis is an obnoxious jerk, too. Interestingly, Lewis thinks that Duffy has gone away on a trip. A suspicious Jack leaves Lewis after Lewis mentions his name; Jack never told Lewis his name so he doesn't trust him. On his way out, Jack runs into May. She confides in Jack that she buried Duffy's body in the desert. Eventually, Lewis shows Jack a tablet that contains a video of Jack at Lewis' house. This is how Lewis knew Jack's name. Anyhow, Lewis knows everything about Jack, his mountain of gambling debt, and his estranged wife and daughter. Surprisingly, Lewis isn't put out that Jack had something to do with his brother's death. He wants him now to kill May, and he is prepared to use blackmail to get him to do it. May shows up at Jack's sleazy motel, and Jack assures her that he will take care of Lewis. We learn that Duffy was a terrible husband who basically kept May in a metaphorical cage and watched her constantly when he wasn't out drinking and whoring. Jack arranges a visit with Paulie (Steven Seagal of "Exit Wounds") through another disreputable man that he owes money, Carl (Vinnie Jones of "Snatch"), and Paulie agrees to help him. He hands Jack a revolver that fires backwards and tells him to give it to Lewis. Jack and Lewis tangle in a gritty fistfight while treacherous May observes the brawl. May gets the drop on Jack, and she tries to kill him. Naturally, the revovler backfires and blows her away. Afterward, Paulie kills Lewis, and they warn Jack to clear out of town.

Gutshot Straight" occurs primarily in Las Vegas casinos and at an exotic house with a swimming pool and flaming torches. As mesmerizing as the action is, nothing really happens in this pedestrian 85-minute melodrama stocked with despicable characters. Jack finds himself in trouble for a murder that he didn't mean to commit, and he flees to his friends that he owes money and gets them to polish off the villain. The action comes full circle. Although it contains polished production values, "Gutshot Straight" essentially qualifies as a potboiler. Stephen Lang and Ted Levine spend more time on screen than either Steven Seagal or Vinnie Jones. Seagal fans won't like it that the paunchy Seagal has what amounts to a cameo. The DVD commentary is interesting and contains insights into the production. This is a one-time watch it only movie.

FILM REVIEW OF "THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN" (1957)

Size obsessed science fiction filmmakers during the 1950s. They measured everything by bulk. Aliens, animals, humans, and robots either increased or decreased in mass. Actually, the first sci-fi film to explore the possibilities of people reduced in stature was Todd Browning’s “The Devil Doll” (1936) about a vengeful scientist who used humans that he had reduced in size to do his dirty work. Gordon Douglas' "Them!" (1954)qualified as the first major movie about small things being enlarged by radiation. “Them!” concerned huge irradiated ants. Inevitably, just as Hollywood had shrunk humans, they would also endeavor to enlarge them. Indeed, director Bert I. Gordon tried out this concept in 1957 with “The Cyclops” about a mutated 25-foot tall human in South America, anticipating Gordon’s own 1958 outing “War of the Colossal Beast.” When you compare the release dates of “The Amazing Colossal Man” (** OUT OF ****) with “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” it looks as if American International Pictures must have rushed former into release to exploit the latter film about a diminutive dude. The problem with director Gordon’s film is that it never generates either the suspense and/or tension that Jack Arnold’s seminal sci-fi classic mustered. Once our hero looms to 60 feet in height in “The Amazing Colossal Man,” nothing can challenge him in the same way that a house cat or a spider did the protagonist of “The Incredible Shrinking Man.”

“The Amazing Colossal Man” opens with a convoy of military vehicles—crossing the screen from left to right—traveling along an asphalt road through the desert as a narrator establishes the setting. “The time is two forty-five A.M., two hours and fifteen minutes before time zero. At time zero, a new type of atomic explosion--a plutonium bomb--will be detonated at Desert Rock, Nevada. These soldiers are to experience the plutonium explosion under simulated combat conditions.” The next sight that we see is several soldiers crouched in a trench in combat gear with helmets and special goggles as the bomb site officer at a distant command post (William Hughes of “Geronimo”) keeps the troops posted about the impending detonation. “Attention! Attention! All personnel. The time is zero minus thirty seconds. The plutonium explosion will take place at time zero. I repeat, the plutonium explosion will take place at time zero.” Dramatically, the officer commences the countdown. When he finishes it, the technician at the command center—a staff sergeant—clicks the mechanism to trigger the detonation. However, nothing happens. The command post officer cautions the troops: “Do not leave your positions. I repeat, do not leave your positions. The plutonium bomb has been triggered and will explode at any moment. The chain reaction did not complete its cycle as calculated. Keep your dark glasses on and stay where you are.” One of the troops asks Colonel Manning (Glenn Langan of “The Snake Pit”) what will happen. He warns them that the bomb could explode at any minute, but he allows them to smoke cigarettes to calm their nerves. About this time, they hear the sound of an engine and Manning spots a light civilian propeller-driven aircraft descend through the clouds. The command post orders the unseen pilot to alter his course, but the plane crashes. The plutonium bomb has still not detonated so a heroic Colonel Manning sheds his helmet and goggles and charges out into the open towards the plane to rescue the pilot. The command post orders him to stop. The plutonium bomb detonates and it catches Manning in a torrential blast that shreds the clothes off his body. Later, the Army doctors have little hope for him since third degree burns cover most of his body.

Manning’s fiancee, Carol Forrest (Cathy Downs of “My Darling Clementine”), visits him at the hospital. Later, the Army spirits Manning away to a secret military facility and forbids to give Carol any information. Obstinately, Carol refuses to be kept away from Manning. The doctors relent and allow Carol to spend time with him. During this interval, Gordon gives us a glimpse of their life together before he participated in the Desert Rock maneuver. Miraculously, despite the third degree burns, Manning survives the ordeal, and a new layer of skin grows to replaces the charred dermis. One tragic side effect is that the Army colonel grows eight to ten feet a day and eventually has to be housed in a circus tent. He has to drink out of a barrel and he eats an entire turkey. Dr. Paul Linstrom (William Hudson of “Mister Roberts”) and Major Eric Coulter, MD (Larry Thor of “Machine Gun Kelly”) both struggle without success to find a cure for his condition. Nevertheless, Manning continues to grow until he towers 60 feet tall. Carol spends time with Manning, but he grows even more depressed about his acute condition and sees no hope for a bright future.

Some forty-five minutes into the action, Manning decides to leave the army base and vanishes into the desert. How does a 60 foot gent avoid detection from the military in the desert? Before long the Army receives reports about slaughtered cattle and two guys in a car with a bottle of liquor encounter Manning at night on the highway. “I’ll never drink again,” the passenger (Hank Patterson of “Green Acres”) assures his companion. Colonel Halleck (James Seay of “Vera Cruz”) warns Linstrom and Coulter that he is prepared to take action against Manning if Manning becomes dangerous. When they finally locate Manning, Manning has wandered into Las Vegas wearing only a sarong. He uproots a palm tree and hurls it at the Las Vegas police after they take rifle shots at it. Manning tromps off to Hoover Dam. Before he gets there, Linstrom and Coulter fly in a huge syringe in a helicopter and administer an injection of a drug which they had succeeded in reducing the size of circus animals. The injection fails and and Manning grabs Carol like King Kong did Fay Wray and walks off with her. Only after he sets Carol down does the military cut loose with a barrage of fire, and Manning topples into the spillway waters and vanishes into the Colorado River.

The only genuinely violent moment occurs near the end when the enraged Manning skewers Coulter with the giant needle and kills him. The scene when he thumbs through the Holy Bible is about as heavy as this fish-out-of-water yarn gets. The ultimate irony that set the first half apart is the idea that Manning sacrificed him in an act of good citizenship to help the pilot who crashed. Gordon, who doubled as the special effects coordinator, does a credible job of developing the unfortunate plight that Manning suffers. While he is under the supervision of the military, Manning emerges as a sympathetic character, but later “The Amazing Colossal Man” turns into a shallow side show freak, as the film apes "King Kong." Gordon's inferior sequel "War of the Colossal Beast" (1958) recycles "Mr. Cyclops. The Disney movie "Honey I Blew Up the Kid" (1992) and "Monsters vs Aliens" (2009) pay tribute to "The Amazing Colossal Man." Gordon revisited the theme of giant humans in "Village of the Giants" (1965).

FILM REVIEW OF ''CON-AIR" (1997)

Summer action movies for adult males celebrate those macho virtues that red-blooded, he-men cherish. British director Simon West’s “Con-Air” (*** out of ****), teaming Nicolas Cage with John Cusack, sizzles as a high flying take-off on all those vintage “Airport” movies, but the passengers here are convicts who skyjack their transport for a rendezvous in the desert with Colombian drug smugglers. At the heart of this superficial but stimulating action movie lies a less than subtle Hollywood commentary on what a macho man must do to conform to society.

In “Con-Air,” Cage plays Cameron Poe, a former U.S. Army Ranger who pulls a stretch in prison for killing a knife-wielding drunkard in a brawl over his wife. Before Poe can recover, the villain’s pals scoop up the knife, scram, and leave our hero to take the rap. Because Poe’s Ranger training qualifies him as a lethal weapon, the court sentences him to eight years in a federal lock-up. While he is incarnated, Poe’s pretty young wife Tricia (Monica Potter) has given birth to an adorable baby girl. In the second quarter-hour of “Con-Air,” Poe and his cut little daughter exchange amusing letters. During this interval, Poe matures enough so that his exemplary behavior wins him a parole.

A short plane ride is the last obstacle between Poe and his freedom. Prison officials pile him onto a cargo plane with an all-star line-up of psychopathic murderers, among them Cyrus ‘the Virus’ Grissom (John Malkovich of “Dangerous Liaisons”) and Diamond Dog (Ving Rhames of “Pulp Fiction”), a vicious black militant. A clean-cut, sandal-shod U.S. Marshal named Vince Larkin (John Cusack of “Grosse Point Blank”) officiates the transfer. The plot thickens when abrasive D.E.A. agent Duncan Molloy (Colm Meaney of “TV’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation”) wins permission to smuggle a trigger-happy undercover agent on board to cajole information out of a Colombian drug lord’s son. Once they’re airborne, the convicts stage an ingenious jail break; ice the D.E.A. agent, and commander the plane. Sally Bishop (Rachel Ticotin of “Total Recall”), then acts as an insider for Larkin. Meanwhile, Larkin clashes with Molloy who aims to avenge his dead agent by blowing the plane to smithereens!

“Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead” scenarist Scott Rosenberg has contrived this hard-fisted hokum that excites and entertains even though it is hopeless predictable from fade-in to fade-out. “Con-Air” spends most of its two-hour running time in the air instead of behind bars. The early prison scenes establish Poe’s friendship with a diabetic black prisoner named Mike Baby-O’ O’Dell (Mykelti Williamson of “Waiting to Exhale”). The filmmakers have carefully balanced good African-Americans with bad African-Americans so as to avoid charges of racism. Rosenberg has penned some catchy dialogue that serves the dual purpose of foreshadowing the action and sounding quite quotable. Nothing happens in “Con-Air” that is not set up far in advance, so the movie never pulls any unfair tricks on its audience. Moreover, the characters spout dialogue about their predicaments that never leave any doubt for the audience about the destination of the action.

Freshman director Simon West and Rosenberg endow Poe with such heroic qualities that it is difficult to believe that any court could have sent a man of his caliber up the river. After all, he is a Gulf War veteran who has just come home to his gorgeous young wife pregnant with a baby girl. Furthermore, the filmmakers hammer home Poe’s Ranger’s credo: no matter what the dangers, U.S. Rangers never abandon their comrades. When Poe has a chance to leave the plane, he sticks around instead to save the day. What “Con-Air” lacks in credibility, it compensates for with its diversity of colorful characters and its pyrotechnics.

Wearing scruffy shoulder length hair and flexing sculpted biceps, Nicolas Cage resembles Sylvester Stallone’s “Rambo” as he thwarts his opponents. Cage’s syrupy Alabama accent gets a little thick on occasion, but he registers as a respectable enough hero. John Cusack excels in his first dramatic action role. Before “Con-Air” crashes to a halt, Cusack’s U.S. Marshal Larkin has been scorched, slugged unconscious, and nearly killed. As a sneering, egotistical D.E.A. agent, Colm Meaney is so convincing that you want to shoot him yourself.

The filmmakers have assembled some really grisly looking actors as the convicts. These bad guys emerge as a truly venomous bunch that richly deserve their inevitable comeuppance. John Malkovich impersonates a character here who is just as despicable and cunning as the assassin that he played in the Clint Eastwood thriller “In the Line of Fire.” Malkovich’s predatory, bald villain boasts that he has slain more men than cancer. As his henchman, Ving Rhames is equally as nefarious. Danny Trejo of “Desperado” fame creates a chilling portrait of lust run amok as a rapist named Johnny 23 with twenty-three hearts tattooed on his beefy forearm to represent his unfortunate rape victims.

West keeps the action stirred up to such a whirlwind pace that its far-fetched elements don’t detract from the excitement. “Con-Air” is West’s big-screen movie debut and he displays a lot of promise as an action director. His action scenes ripple with adrenaline, especially the plane hijacking, an ambush in a derelict airplane scrap heap, and a rousing finale in Las Vegas. The explosive music of Mark Mancina and former “Yes” musician Trevor Rabin considerably enhances each of these slam-bang scenes. “Yes” rock music fans will recognize those distinctive, throbbing Rabin chords that punctuate the action.

Nobody should imitate “Con-Air” or take its woefully exaggerated carnival of snap, crackle, pop violence seriously. Characters get shot, stabled, and dismembered beyond anything an ordinary individual cold take, but then this clever, slickly-packaged fantasy pokes as much fun at itself as at its audiences. One amusing scene involves the destruction of a classic sports car. Another features Cage battling with another convict because he refuses to head Poe’s warning to “leave the bunny alone.’

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE HANGOVER'' (2009)

“Old School” director Todd Phillips finds himself in fine form once again with a farcically funny, guys-gone-crazy, hootenanny “The Hangover” (**** out of ****), the flip side of the darker 1998 Christian Slater facsimile “Very Bad Things.” Starring Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, and Heather Graham, this side-splitting Sin City ‘lost weekend’ gives new meaning to the old adage “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’ A riotous, rip-snorting, R-rated, road-trip comedy from fade-in to fade-out, this opus about three groomsmen and a bachelor sowing wild oats takes many unexpected twists and turns throughout its hysterical 99 minutes to keep you laughing long after the end credits. “Four Christmases” scribes Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who also penned “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” have concocted a fresh, funny, and far-out misadventure that consistently delivers laughs based on the comic formula of incongruity. Our sympathetic heroes spend the entire time behind the eight ball dealing with one trial and tribulation after another so outlandish that you cannot help by howl at each new revelation.

Doug Billings (Justin Bartha of the “National Treasure” movies) is due to wed his wealthy fiancée Tracy Garner (Sasha Barrese of “Legally Blonde”) in two days. Before he gets hitched, Doug’s two best buddies—school teacher Phil Wenneck (Bradley Cooper of “He’s Just Not That Into You”) and dentist Stu Price (Ed Helms of “Semi-Pro”)—along with Tracy’s weird brother Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis of TV’s “Tru Calling”) take him to Vegas for a last-minute blow-out. Tracy’s father Sid (Jeffrey Tambor 0f “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army”) hands Doug the keys to his classic Mercedes convertible and entrusts its care to him. Sid admonishes Doug not to let Alan get behind the wheel, and Doug and his cronies hit the road for Caesar’s Palace. No sooner do they arrive than they alter their plans. First, they check themselves into an expensive $4, 200 a night villa. Second, they ascend to the roof to toast Doug’s future with shots of Jagermeister. Third, cretinous Alan laces their liquor with Rohypnol or roofies, a date-rape drug that he mistakenly believes is Ecstasy so they can really enjoy themselves.

Phil, Stu, and Alan awaken the next day to a trashed villa. Alan waddles off to take a whiz and discovers that a real-live tiger—stripes, claws, and all—is lounging in their bathroom. Our heroes regroup and deduce that they have spent the wildest weekend of their lives. Phil wears a medical bracelet from his night in the emergency room where doctors treated him for a concussion. Not only has Stu lost one of his front teeth, but he has also lost his mother’s Holocaust ring that he planned to give to his girlfriend Melissa (Rachael Harris of “The Soloist”), when he proposes marriage to her. Incidentally, Melissa believes the boys are enjoying a wine tasting weekend in the woods rather than a bachelor party in Vegas. Nothing really awful happens to Alan because he qualifies as his own worst enemy. Alan discovers, however, that they have an infant in their closet. When the guys descend to the parking lot for their Mercedes, they are surprised when the valets whip a Las Vegas police cruiser up to the entrance for them.

Principally, our heroes remember nothing from the previous eight hours thanks to the roofies. Worse, they find neither hide nor hair of Doug. Indeed, Doug has vanished. Phil, Stu, and Alan set out to retrace their evening’s revelry in an effort to recover Doug. Stu learns he has married a stripper, Jade (Heather Graham of “Say It Isn’t So”), who is wearing his mother’s Holocaust ring, while a couple of Asian thugs want to pound them into the pavement for stealing $80-thousand from their whiny boss, Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong of “Role Models”), who has lost is dough as well as his duds.

Todd Phillips relates most of this madcap merriment in flashback. No stranger to comedy, Phillips also helmed “School for Scoundrels’ and “Road Trip,” and he keeps the humor in high gear. One of the funniest scenes finds our hapless heroes making a deal with the Las Vegas Police to drop their grand theft auto charges if they participate in a tazer demonstration. The LVPD let elementary school aged children tazer them. Eventually, our heroes find Doug but they also have to tangle with Mike Tyson as well as Doug’s testy fiancée. Tracy demands unequivocally that they haul themselves back to L.A. for the wedding. Predictably, our heroes damage Sid’s priceless Mercedes and snap scores of incriminating photos of themselves at play. Unlike “Very Bad Things,” “The Hangover” will keep you doubled up in hysterics!