This entertaining 'crime-does-not-pay' European heist caper pits mastermind safe-cracker Kirk Douglas against his trapeze artist sidekick Giuliano Gemma as well as his former Teutonic criminal underworld boss Wolfgang Preiss. "Goliath and the Sins of Babylon" director Michele Lupo's suspenseful yarn boasts intrigue, betrayal, and a demolition-derby car chase in Hamburg, Germany, as our hero sets out to pull another one of those formulaic fool-proof last jobs. "Un uomo da rispettare" benefits from the terrific widescreen cinematography of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" lenser Tonino Delli Colli and his use of 'Dutch' tilt angles. Composer Ennio Morricone contributes a muted orchestral score and Lupo relies on a lively classical Mozart tune in two scenes. The twist here is that our anti-heroic protagonist stages one robbery but plans to be caught for another robbery so as throw the German police and the villains off the scent. Naturally, nothing goes quite as it is planned in this ingenious but familiar caper. Like director Richard Brooks' crime caper "Dollars" (1971), Lupo's film focuses on banks that contain ultra-sophisticated security systems to safeguard their assets.
"Un uomo da rispettare" (**1/2 out of ****) opens with marked police cars rampaging around the city while Detective Hoffman (Reinhard Kolldehoff of "Shout at the Devil") transports convicted career criminal Steve Wallace (Kirk Douglas of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") home to his wife Anna (Florinda Bolkan of "The Last Valley") after having served three years in prison. No sooner does the police car leave Wallace in front of his house than a carload of thugs cruise up. One of the ruffians informs Wallace that their boss, Miller (Wolfgang Preiss of "Raid on Rommel"), wants to talk to him. Reluctantly, Wallace accompanies them to see the well-heeled Miller in his huge office above a casino. Miller surrounds himself with an array of electronic gadgets to present his proposition for a heist with a million dollar payday. "I've got a job only you can do," he explains. "Now, listen carefully, you must knock out this alarm system. It's called 'Big Ben.' If it goes off, the whole city can hear it." Miller shows Wallace the vault on the top floor where the International Insurance Company has stored a cool million. "Now I know you can handle this safe, Steve, but Big Ben is the problem. The buzzing of a fly, a footstep, a deep breath is enough to trip the alarm." Miller pauses and then observes in an effort to entice Wallace. "Nobody has ever thought of it before." Wallace refuses flatly to pull the job for Miller. Before he worked for Miller, Wallace never encountered trouble. He wound up serving three years in prison when he did his first job for Miller. Nevertheless, Wallace tours the building and finds the edifice decked out with surveillance galore. He heads up to the top floor to snoop around but the disembodied voice of a woman interrupts him. He tells her that he has an appointment with Mr. Schmitt. The woman at a central control desk tells him that Schmitt's office is located on the second floor. Miller's rough-hewn henchman (Romano Puppo of "Death Rides A Horse") spots him leaving the building. He tries to persuade Wallace to see Miller again. Wallace refuses. While they are talking, a young man in an old jalopy, Marco (Giuliano Gemma), pulls up behind the henchman and honks at him. The two tangle in a rough and tumble fight with Marco demonstrating his agility. Miller's man brandishes a pistol. Wallace intervenes and knocks the gun out of the thug's fist.
This chance encounter serves as an opportunity for Wallace and Marco to become friends. Sadly, Wallace doesn't pay enough attention either to his unhappy wife or his new friend. Wallace convinces Anna that he can steal millions without being held accountable if he stages one robbery but takes the fall for another lesser robbery. If everything goes according to plan, Wallace calculates that--under German law--he will only land in prison for 18 months from robbing a pawn shop. Unfortunately, Marco relies too heavily on his switchblade knife. Earlier, Wallace warns Marco sternly about this predilection. Director Lupo does a good job of staging the International Insurance safe-cracking job. Wallace decides to pull the job in the afternoon rather than at night. He slips into the building just after it has closed and looks like just another businessman with a bag that contains his instruments. Meantime, Anna makes appropriate phone calls at the precise moments to distract the uniformed guards while our hero sets up an array of gadgets to warn him when the guards are making their rounds. He uses Mozart music to skillfully distract the 'Big Ben' alarm system. Furthermore, after he gains access to the vault room, Wallace sprinkles powder on the push-buttons that must be punched according to a sequence to raise the circular vault out of the floor. He uses the powder to determine which buttons have fingerprints on them. Pretty savvy!!! Unfortunately, the best laid plans go awry when poor Marco kills the guard. You'd think after his knock down, drag-out brawl with Miller's henchman that Marco could have beaten the guard and left him unconscious. That isn't the point. The guard must be found down and at the last moment so that it comes as a complete surprise to Wallace.
"Un uomo da rispettare" is one of those crime caper films made after the abolition of the Production Code. Earlier, Hollywood films and European films would never allow the criminals to escape with their ill-gotten gains. This would been a prescription for anarchy. Filmmakers could not make such a radical, anti-status-quo statement. The idea that 'crime could pay' would have been considered unethical! Cleverly, however, Lupo and scenarists Roberto Leoni, Franco Bucceri, Mino Roli, and Nico Ducci create suspense by letting Wallace get away with one robbery only to be nabbed for another one! After all, this is a testament to Wallace's brilliance as a safe-cracker. A handsome, well-tailored Kirk Douglas is shrewd throughout until he realizes that he has been sold out. As his immature pal, Giuliano Gemma looks like a European version of Paul Newman. He appears to be performing his own stunts in the circus scenes. The slam-bang car chase between Marco and Miller's lieutenant as a part of their feud is amusing. This isn't the kind of car chase that was usually found in Hollywood epics at the time. Surprisingly, this chase seems to have been filmed in chronological order since neither vehicle looks like it changes during the demolition.
CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.
Showing posts with label New York Police Department. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Police Department. Show all posts
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Monday, August 9, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF ''THE OTHER GUYS'' (2010)
“Saturday Night Live” comedian Will Ferrell has made a mint out of playing morons. He delivers another hilarious performance as a moronic New York Police Department detective in "Talladega Nights” director Adam McKay’s “The Other Guys,” (** out of ****) an ambitious but half-baked parody of slam-bang police thrillers. Oscar nominated actor Mark Wahlberg of “The Departed” co-stars as Ferrell’s pugnacious NYPD partner. Unfortunately, Wahlberg displays none of Ferrell’s comic genius. Indeed, nothing Wahlberg does registers as remotely amusing. He is either screaming at Ferrell or skewering his partner’s masculinity. Wahlberg appears to be channeling Joe Pesci from the Martin Scorsese classics “Goodfellas” and “Casino.” Alas, Wahlberg is no Pesci. The funniest thing next to Ferrell is the non-stop ridicule reserved for our hero’s red Prius. Incredibly, the car is far funnier than Wahlberg. McKay and “Land of the Lost” scenarist Chris Henchy struggle with little success to combine a formulaic buddy picture comedy with a complex white-collar crime conspiracy about a shady investment banker. Nevertheless, anything Ferrell does will keep you in stitches, but all Wahlberg’s scenes should have hit the editing room floor. Think of “The Other Guys” as a mediocre “Police Academy” knock-off with half of the laughs. Primarily, the humor grows out of the irony that two pencil-pushing desk jockeys wind up replacing two loose-cannon celebrity crime busters as the top cops in the Big Apple. The stunt work is terrific. The opening gag where a heroic pair of testosterone-driven cops smash their sports car through a double-decker bus to arrest two shooters for a misdemeanor amount of narcotics is impressive. Again, McKay and Henchy make some poor narrative choices. First, they kill off the two most charismatic characters, Highsmith and Danson, in the first quarter hour. Second, they replace them with two colorless morons. Our heroes qualify as genuine underdogs. Third, McKay and Henchy never provide a solid, colorful villain. The villainous chores are split between a the harmless investment banker and an antagonist Australian troubleshooter. You cannot spoof a genre, like crime movies, unless you follow the dictates of the genre. Since there is no central villain, our heroes have it pretty easy. The closest character to a villain turns out to be their own police captain. Mind you, "The Other Guys" isn't even an adequate parody. Some of the jokes on the side shine, like Dirty Mike and his homeless crew that have an orgy in our hero's car.
NYPD Detectives P.K. Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson of “Pulp Fiction”) and Christopher Danson (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson of “The Tooth Fairy”) are a macho pair of “Lethal Weapon” cops who refuse to let details complicate their roguish antics. Although they make spectacular arrests, they also create equally spectacular property damage. Nevertheless, everybody loves them so they can flout the rules without fear of repercussion. As “The Other Guys” opens, Highsmith and Danson are chasing a gang armed with assault weapons. Danson has gotten atop their Escalade, but he isn’t there long after they shoot up the roof. Danson dives back onto Highsmith’s car, rolls off the hood onto the roof, and swings into the front seat. The villains blast Highsmith’s car so the hood folds back against the windshield and blinds them. Highsmith shoots off the hood hinge. Too late! He plows into a double-decker bus as the villains appear to get away. Danson commandeers the double-decker bus with Highsmith’s car still stuck in it. Danson careens after the hoods, whips the double-decker around, launching Highsmith’s car with Highsmith blasting away with two pistols at the hoods. Highsmith takes them down, shoots the gas tank of their Escalade, and soars over the explosion, crashing into the building. After Highsmith and Danson receive their medals, Precinct Captain Gene Mauch (Michael Keaton of “Batman”) calls on somebody to complete their paper work. These two cops have never wasted their time with paperwork. Detective Allen Gamble snaps at the opportunity to complete the Highsmith and Danson paperwork. Not long afterward, Highsmith and Danson leap to their deaths when they try to thwart a team of acrobats who wield a wrecking ball to smash their way into a jewelry store and heist $79-thousand in stones.
A milquetoast forensic accountant who prefers to file paperwork, Gamble (Will Ferrell of “Old School”) likes to hum the S.W.A.T. theme and stay in the precinct office rather than nab the bad guys on the streets. His idea of busting loose is to floor the gas pedal of his Prius and play the Little River Band. Allen’s partner, Detective Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg of “Date Night”), is just the opposite. Terry dreams of making the big bust. He suspects drug deals behind every crime. Sadly, Terry has been confined to a desk and stuck with Allen. The skeleton in Terry’s closet is he accidentally shot New York Yankees baseball slugger Derek Jeter in the leg during the seventh game of the World Series. Yes, the Yankees lost! Everybody in the precinct now calls Terry ‘the Yankee Clipper.’ Naturally, Terry hates Allen, but he lives by the venerable “partner’s code,” a police maxim that requires a partner to back up his partner no matter what the circumstance. Ironically, Allen’s obsession with paper work prompts them to arrest British investment banker Sir David Ershon (Steve Coogan of “Tropic Thunder”) who is up to his neck in a grand scheme to steal $32-billion from the NYPD Pension Fund to cover the loses of another Wall Street titan.
The best scene between Ferrell and Wahlberg is the lion-versus-the-tuna tale. Terry tells Allen that he would rip him to shreds as easily as a lion could a tuna. Terry destroys the lack of logic in Terry’s example with own flawed logic. He claims that the tuna would construct an oxygen apparatus to allow them to live out of water so they could stalk and attack lions on dry land. The running joke throughout “The Other Guys” is that nerdy Allen is a babe magnet. Sexy chicks come on to him but ignore Terry. At one point, Allen and Terry have to interview one of Allen’s old girlfriends to get message that was ghost-messaged from Allen’s cell phone to her cell phone. Again, Terry is flabbergasted by Allen’s sexy ex-girlfriend. Terry is floored when he finally meets Allen’s hot chick wife, Dr. Shelia Gamble (Eva Mendez of “Training Day”), who is crazy about her husband. Allen and Shelia met while he was in college acting as a pimp for some of his girlfriends. Allen assured Terry that his pimping days were dark days indeed because he became a different person nicknamed ‘Gator.’ “The Other Guys” swerves erratically between scenes of Allen and Terry bonding to the chaos that they create when they arrest Ershon. The “Grand Theft Auto” chases, the blazing gunfights, and the audacious wrecking ball jewelry heist accent look cool but these scenes seem out of place in a screwy buddy comedy. Ultimately, the PG-13 rated "Other Guys” runs out of momentum and laughs long before it runs out of plot.
NYPD Detectives P.K. Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson of “Pulp Fiction”) and Christopher Danson (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson of “The Tooth Fairy”) are a macho pair of “Lethal Weapon” cops who refuse to let details complicate their roguish antics. Although they make spectacular arrests, they also create equally spectacular property damage. Nevertheless, everybody loves them so they can flout the rules without fear of repercussion. As “The Other Guys” opens, Highsmith and Danson are chasing a gang armed with assault weapons. Danson has gotten atop their Escalade, but he isn’t there long after they shoot up the roof. Danson dives back onto Highsmith’s car, rolls off the hood onto the roof, and swings into the front seat. The villains blast Highsmith’s car so the hood folds back against the windshield and blinds them. Highsmith shoots off the hood hinge. Too late! He plows into a double-decker bus as the villains appear to get away. Danson commandeers the double-decker bus with Highsmith’s car still stuck in it. Danson careens after the hoods, whips the double-decker around, launching Highsmith’s car with Highsmith blasting away with two pistols at the hoods. Highsmith takes them down, shoots the gas tank of their Escalade, and soars over the explosion, crashing into the building. After Highsmith and Danson receive their medals, Precinct Captain Gene Mauch (Michael Keaton of “Batman”) calls on somebody to complete their paper work. These two cops have never wasted their time with paperwork. Detective Allen Gamble snaps at the opportunity to complete the Highsmith and Danson paperwork. Not long afterward, Highsmith and Danson leap to their deaths when they try to thwart a team of acrobats who wield a wrecking ball to smash their way into a jewelry store and heist $79-thousand in stones.
A milquetoast forensic accountant who prefers to file paperwork, Gamble (Will Ferrell of “Old School”) likes to hum the S.W.A.T. theme and stay in the precinct office rather than nab the bad guys on the streets. His idea of busting loose is to floor the gas pedal of his Prius and play the Little River Band. Allen’s partner, Detective Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg of “Date Night”), is just the opposite. Terry dreams of making the big bust. He suspects drug deals behind every crime. Sadly, Terry has been confined to a desk and stuck with Allen. The skeleton in Terry’s closet is he accidentally shot New York Yankees baseball slugger Derek Jeter in the leg during the seventh game of the World Series. Yes, the Yankees lost! Everybody in the precinct now calls Terry ‘the Yankee Clipper.’ Naturally, Terry hates Allen, but he lives by the venerable “partner’s code,” a police maxim that requires a partner to back up his partner no matter what the circumstance. Ironically, Allen’s obsession with paper work prompts them to arrest British investment banker Sir David Ershon (Steve Coogan of “Tropic Thunder”) who is up to his neck in a grand scheme to steal $32-billion from the NYPD Pension Fund to cover the loses of another Wall Street titan.
The best scene between Ferrell and Wahlberg is the lion-versus-the-tuna tale. Terry tells Allen that he would rip him to shreds as easily as a lion could a tuna. Terry destroys the lack of logic in Terry’s example with own flawed logic. He claims that the tuna would construct an oxygen apparatus to allow them to live out of water so they could stalk and attack lions on dry land. The running joke throughout “The Other Guys” is that nerdy Allen is a babe magnet. Sexy chicks come on to him but ignore Terry. At one point, Allen and Terry have to interview one of Allen’s old girlfriends to get message that was ghost-messaged from Allen’s cell phone to her cell phone. Again, Terry is flabbergasted by Allen’s sexy ex-girlfriend. Terry is floored when he finally meets Allen’s hot chick wife, Dr. Shelia Gamble (Eva Mendez of “Training Day”), who is crazy about her husband. Allen and Shelia met while he was in college acting as a pimp for some of his girlfriends. Allen assured Terry that his pimping days were dark days indeed because he became a different person nicknamed ‘Gator.’ “The Other Guys” swerves erratically between scenes of Allen and Terry bonding to the chaos that they create when they arrest Ershon. The “Grand Theft Auto” chases, the blazing gunfights, and the audacious wrecking ball jewelry heist accent look cool but these scenes seem out of place in a screwy buddy comedy. Ultimately, the PG-13 rated "Other Guys” runs out of momentum and laughs long before it runs out of plot.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF "SHAFT" (1971)
The NAACP gave up trying to persuade Hollywood to cast more African-Americans in films and television shows in 1963 and resorted to legal measures and economic sanctions. Consequently, blacks began to appear in both major and minor roles in greater numbers. Actor Sidney Poitier emerged in the late 1960s as the first truly popular African-American actor and qualified as an example of "the model
integrationist hero." By the 1970s, African-Americans had turned up not only in ghetto-themed movies but also every other film genre and television show. Meanwhile, the discrimination that black actresses encountered simply mirrored the shortage of roles white actresses had contended with in Hollywood since time immemorial. Former Cleveland Browns football star Jim Brown rose to prominence in the wake of Sidney
Poitier as the new African-American hero. Poitier and Brown served as precursors for Blaxploitation.
Eventually, the pendulum swung from one extreme with the racist depiction of blacks as subservient Sambo characters before the 1960s to the newest extreme with blacks portrayed as Superspades in what later constituted a cinematic phenomenon called Blaxploitation. Essentially, the golden age of Blaxploitation movies occurred between 1970 and 1975 and these movie targeted primarily black audiences. Blaxploitation heroes and heroines displayed a social and political consciousness, and they were not confined to single roles. They were cast as private eyes,
policemen, vigilantes, troubleshooters, pimps, etc. In each instance, these characters worked within the system, but they did so as they saw fit and sought to improve the African-American community. Not surprisingly, blaxploitation heroes often clashed with whites, but they refused to depict whites in strictly monolithic terms. Good whites and bad whites jockeyed for prominence in the films. Although one NAACP official described blaxploitation as just "another form of cultural genocide," African-American audiences flocked to see them. Blaxploitation movies knew no boundaries and encompassed comedies, musicals, westerns, coming-of-age dramas, slave plantation films, and horror movies.
Director Ossie Davis' urban crime thriller "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970), about two African-American N.Y.P.D. cops, Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) and Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge), based on the Chester Himes novel, paved the way for the movement. When the film premiered, critics did not categorize Cotton as blaxploitation. Interestingly, the term "black exploitation" first appeared in print in the August 16, 1972, issue of the show business newspaper "Variety" when the NAACP Beverly Hills-Hollywood branch president, Junius Griffin, coined the term in a speech about the derogatory impact of the genre on African-Americans. Later, black exploitation was abbreviated as blaxploitation. The two films that historians have classified as "germinal" were independent filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles' "Sweet
Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" (1971) and mainstream director Gordon Parks' "Shaft" (1971). Peebles's film supplemented the content of Davis' film with sex and violence, and Sweetback's success with black audiences triggered the blaxploitation craze, one of the most profitable in cinematic history. Major Hollywood film studios rushed similar films into production. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer followed Sweetback's
success with their private eye thriller "Shaft" (1971) starring model-turned-actor Richard Roundtree as the equivalent of Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade gumshoe character in "The Maltese Falcon." Some critics complained that movies like Shaft simply substituted blacks in roles that were traditionally played by whites. Initially, MGM thought about of rewriting the African-American lead in Shaft, based on Ernst
Tidyman's novel as a Caucasian.
As a detective movie, Shaft observed all the conventions of the genre. The action opens with the trench coat-clad protagonist wearing out shoe leather in Manhattan to the tune of Isaac Hayes' iconic, Oscar-winning theme music. The lyrics provide a thumbnail sketch of the hero's persona. Private detective John Shaft lives up to those lyrics as "the cat who won't cop out when there's danger all about." At this point in the action, Shaft makes his rounds and checks in with his people and learns that some people are looking for him. Mind you, not only are some hoods looking for our protagonist, but also the N.Y.P.D., in the person of Lieutenant Vic Androzzi, is looking for Shaft. Androzzi has been hearing some bad things and wants to check up with Shaft of what's happening. Meanwtime,an infamous Harlem crime lord, Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn), loosely based on real-life criminal Bumpy Johnson, hires Shaft to locate his missing daughter Marcy. Shaft goes out looking for an old friend who has gotten into the revolution frame of mind, Ben Buford and he finds him at Amsterdam, 710. The villains stage a raid on Ben's building and only Shaft and Ben survive a massacre. Eventually, Shaft discovers that the Italian mafia has abducted her and he assembles a motley crew of black militants called The La Mumbas to help him rescue Marcy. Ben Buford (Christopher St. John of "For Love of Ivy")is the man in charge of The La Mumbas who helps Shaft out during the rescue in a blazing, shoot'em up finale in the last scene. Shaft and Buford have a face-to-face confrontation when the latter accuses the former of being a "Judas." The success of Shaft spawned two sequels "Shaft's Big Score" (1972) and "Shaft in Africa" (1973) and later a short-lived television series. Many blaxploitation movies gained notoriety for negative portrayals of African-Americans trapped in the ghettos that resorted to crime and
vice to triumph over their hostile surroundings and oppressive white
landlords.
integrationist hero." By the 1970s, African-Americans had turned up not only in ghetto-themed movies but also every other film genre and television show. Meanwhile, the discrimination that black actresses encountered simply mirrored the shortage of roles white actresses had contended with in Hollywood since time immemorial. Former Cleveland Browns football star Jim Brown rose to prominence in the wake of Sidney
Poitier as the new African-American hero. Poitier and Brown served as precursors for Blaxploitation.
Eventually, the pendulum swung from one extreme with the racist depiction of blacks as subservient Sambo characters before the 1960s to the newest extreme with blacks portrayed as Superspades in what later constituted a cinematic phenomenon called Blaxploitation. Essentially, the golden age of Blaxploitation movies occurred between 1970 and 1975 and these movie targeted primarily black audiences. Blaxploitation heroes and heroines displayed a social and political consciousness, and they were not confined to single roles. They were cast as private eyes,
policemen, vigilantes, troubleshooters, pimps, etc. In each instance, these characters worked within the system, but they did so as they saw fit and sought to improve the African-American community. Not surprisingly, blaxploitation heroes often clashed with whites, but they refused to depict whites in strictly monolithic terms. Good whites and bad whites jockeyed for prominence in the films. Although one NAACP official described blaxploitation as just "another form of cultural genocide," African-American audiences flocked to see them. Blaxploitation movies knew no boundaries and encompassed comedies, musicals, westerns, coming-of-age dramas, slave plantation films, and horror movies.
Director Ossie Davis' urban crime thriller "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970), about two African-American N.Y.P.D. cops, Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) and Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge), based on the Chester Himes novel, paved the way for the movement. When the film premiered, critics did not categorize Cotton as blaxploitation. Interestingly, the term "black exploitation" first appeared in print in the August 16, 1972, issue of the show business newspaper "Variety" when the NAACP Beverly Hills-Hollywood branch president, Junius Griffin, coined the term in a speech about the derogatory impact of the genre on African-Americans. Later, black exploitation was abbreviated as blaxploitation. The two films that historians have classified as "germinal" were independent filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles' "Sweet
Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" (1971) and mainstream director Gordon Parks' "Shaft" (1971). Peebles's film supplemented the content of Davis' film with sex and violence, and Sweetback's success with black audiences triggered the blaxploitation craze, one of the most profitable in cinematic history. Major Hollywood film studios rushed similar films into production. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer followed Sweetback's
success with their private eye thriller "Shaft" (1971) starring model-turned-actor Richard Roundtree as the equivalent of Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade gumshoe character in "The Maltese Falcon." Some critics complained that movies like Shaft simply substituted blacks in roles that were traditionally played by whites. Initially, MGM thought about of rewriting the African-American lead in Shaft, based on Ernst
Tidyman's novel as a Caucasian.
As a detective movie, Shaft observed all the conventions of the genre. The action opens with the trench coat-clad protagonist wearing out shoe leather in Manhattan to the tune of Isaac Hayes' iconic, Oscar-winning theme music. The lyrics provide a thumbnail sketch of the hero's persona. Private detective John Shaft lives up to those lyrics as "the cat who won't cop out when there's danger all about." At this point in the action, Shaft makes his rounds and checks in with his people and learns that some people are looking for him. Mind you, not only are some hoods looking for our protagonist, but also the N.Y.P.D., in the person of Lieutenant Vic Androzzi, is looking for Shaft. Androzzi has been hearing some bad things and wants to check up with Shaft of what's happening. Meanwtime,an infamous Harlem crime lord, Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn), loosely based on real-life criminal Bumpy Johnson, hires Shaft to locate his missing daughter Marcy. Shaft goes out looking for an old friend who has gotten into the revolution frame of mind, Ben Buford and he finds him at Amsterdam, 710. The villains stage a raid on Ben's building and only Shaft and Ben survive a massacre. Eventually, Shaft discovers that the Italian mafia has abducted her and he assembles a motley crew of black militants called The La Mumbas to help him rescue Marcy. Ben Buford (Christopher St. John of "For Love of Ivy")is the man in charge of The La Mumbas who helps Shaft out during the rescue in a blazing, shoot'em up finale in the last scene. Shaft and Buford have a face-to-face confrontation when the latter accuses the former of being a "Judas." The success of Shaft spawned two sequels "Shaft's Big Score" (1972) and "Shaft in Africa" (1973) and later a short-lived television series. Many blaxploitation movies gained notoriety for negative portrayals of African-Americans trapped in the ghettos that resorted to crime and
vice to triumph over their hostile surroundings and oppressive white
landlords.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF "COTTON COMES TO HARLEM" (1970)
Not only did “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) mark the directorial debut of actor & writer Ossie Davis, but also this pre-blaxploitation epic introduced audiences to a couple of tough-talking, incorruptible New York Police Detectives nicknamed ‘Gravedigger’ Jones (Godfrey Cambridge of “Watermelon Man”) and ‘Coffin Ed’ Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques of “Cool Breeze”) who suspect that a charismatic religious figure may be swindling his own poor people. Technically, since the term “blaxploitation” didn't enter the lexicon until 1972, this movie poised itself on the cutting edge before the edge starting cutting with films such as the “Shaft” franchise, “Superfly,” and “Slaughter” movies. The chief difference between “Cotton Comes to Harlem” and a standard-issue, formulaic white crime thriller is the protagonists are African-American. The slang is predominantly African-American, but other minorities participate in the action, primarily the Italian mafia. The protagonists are the usual iconoclasts who have alienated themselves from higher authority with their abrasive behavior. Predictably, about three-quarters of the way into the action, a superior officer removes them from the case, largely because he feels that they are acting out of prejudice against one of their own people. Early, the same police captain had complained bitterly that Gravedigger and Coffin Ed have smart mouths, are quick with their fists, and too fast with their guns. Clearly, as far as the captain is concerned, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed qualify as maniacs who have no business in an investigation that is a powder keg of racial tensions. Nevertheless, their white police lieutenant defends their behavior. He explains that they have a special way of handling Harlem crime and if they suspect somebody of criminal behavior, the lieutenant defers to their judgment. Meantime, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed see their job has protecting “the Black folks from the White folks.”
Initially, when we first see the Reverend Deke O'Malley (Calvin Lockhart of “Dark of the Sun”), he is riding in a Rolls Royce, cruising through gritty Harlem streets to a rally for his "Back To Africa" campaign. A gold-colored armored car with the black silhouette cut-out of a luxury liner displayed prominently on its roof follows. Rev. Deke refers to this ship as ‘Black Beauty.’ He is selling tickets for it at a $100 minimum to take African-Americans back to Africa, away from the white man and his rats and poverty. Although the white establishment supports Deke, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed believe Deke is swindling poor blacks out of their hard earned dollars. During the rally, Deke explains that God anointed him while he was in jail to build an ark and take his people back to Africa. While this self-proclaimed Noah assures blacks he can provide them with a better way of life away from racist white America, masked thugs in orange suits armed with submachine gun shoot up the gathering and rifle the safe in Deke’s gold-armored truck. They kill one of Deke’s uniformed guards, John (Tony Brubaker of “Slaughter's Big Rip-Off”), and his wife Mabel watches him die. The robbers careen off in a meat truck with Deke following them and Gravedigger and Coffin Ed in hot pursuit.
During the chase, a cotton bale tumbles from the rear of the truck onto the sidewalk. The robbers strafe Gravedigger and Coffin Ed. Our heroes collide with a produce wagon transporting watermelons. Eventually, the robber’s truck and the armored car crash and burn up. Meanwhile, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed search for Deke. They visit his girlfriend, Iris (Judy Pace of “Three in the Attic”), and question her with luck about Deke’s whereabouts. While they are interrogating Iris, Sergeant Jarema (Dick Sabol of “Come Back Charleston Blue”) enters and informs them Lieutenant Anderson (Eugene Roche of “The Happening”), wants them at the scene of the accident. They order Jarema stay behind to keep an eye on Iris. Iris taunts Jarema into having sex with her. She makes him wear a brown paper bag. While he is putting on the bag, she escapes. Jarema locks himself out of her apartment, completely naked in the hallway for the other residents to see.
Captain Bryce (John Anderson of “Young Billy Young”) reprimands our heroes for suspecting that Rev. Deke O’Malley is a confidence artist. Bryce points out that the State Department and other high-prolife white groups have the highest regard for O’Malley. Later, Bryce complains to Anderson about their behavior. Deke decides to stay out of sight and conduct his own investigation. He convinces the wife of one of his dead guards to let him stay with her. Eventually, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed get Iris to inform on Deke and he goes to jail, but his attorney gets him out. Everybody is looking now for the bale of cotton that contains the stolen $87-thousand. Uncle Budd (Red Foxx of “Sanford & Son”) finds the bale and sells it for $25 to Abe Goodman. A mysterious stranger in black with a beret, Calhoun (J.D. Cannon of “Lawman”), visits Uncle Budd on his junk barge and inquires about the bale of cotton. Calhoun comes on tough until Deke’s second-in-command Barry (Teddy Wilson of “Cleopatra Jones”) confronts him and runs him off. Uncle Budd buys the cotton bale back for $30 from Goodman. Later, that night, Calhoun and his gang and Deke and his men converge on Goodman’s Junkyard. A firefight erupts and Digger is nearly struck by a truck. Nevertheless, our heroes nab Deke, haul him in for questioning, and expose him for the swindler that he is. Iris, who was found unconscious at Mabel Hill’s apartment, has told the authorities that Deke hired impostors to masquerade as the District Attorney’s Office. These impostors showed up at Deke’s rally moments before the orange jump-suit clad gunners raked the spectators with gunfire and killed John Hill.
Davis dilutes the thrills and chills of the meat truck & armored car pursuit scene with four smaller scenes within it. These four sub-scenes feature mild comedy, while the primary scene depicts a chase through the streets of New York City. The first sub-scene involves a guy trying to attract the attention of three lovely ladies strolling on the sidewalk. None ever acknowledge his existence. The second involves a hustler stealing a rack of dresses from a street vendor when the chase momentarily distracts him. The third concerns a stoned individual trying to ignite a joint. The smoker staggers into the street and miraculously neither the armored truck nor the police cruiser collide with him. This gag resembles the physical comedy that Buster Keaton practiced in silent movies. The fourth gag involves a street artist painting an expressionist portrait of a gullible Christian woman while the pickpocket Early Riser wields a pair of scissors to cut through her skirt to steal the purse that she is clutching between her legs. These four sub-scenes feature mild comedy, while the primary scene depicts a straight-forward chase through the streets of New York City that ends with the pickpocket being struck and killed. During the chase, the gunmen in the meat truck riddle the unmarked police car, shatter its window into shards, blow out its headlights, and obliterate the outside rearview mirrors. Oops, the driver’s outside rear view reappears after bullets have torn it off the door when our heroes crash into a watermelon wagon.
Geoffrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques make a believable pair of cops who interact as if they have known each other for a long time. As Coffin Ed, St. Jacques is the hard-nosed detective of the two with a short fuse who prefers to get physical with suspects, meaning pummel them with his knuckled up fists. During a confrontation with a black street vigilante gang, our heroes are compared to monsters. The beret wearing, tan-uniform clad brothers refer to Gravedigger as 'King Kong' and Coffin Ed as 'Frankenstein.' As the villain, Calvin Lockhart gives a dynamic performance and makes a serviceable villain.
Director Ossie Davis and television scribe Arnold Pearl penned the screenplay from Chester Himes’ novel. Some of the dialogue is very sharp as are the blaxploitation slogans: “Keep it black till I get back.” “Is that black enough for you?” Several messages pervade this above-average crime thriller about the search for stolen loot. First, the meek shall inherit the Earth. Second, crime doesn’t pay and criminals have to pay to ply their criminal vocation. Harlem blacks should control Harlem, not the Italian mafia. Our heroes force the Italian mafia to turn over their Harlem operation to a Black racketeer. Black women can outsmart white men. One black woman is depicted as a ‘stone fox,’ and she makes a buffoon of a cretinous white police sergeant. The interesting question that arises but is never resolved—and by extension gives “Cotton Comes to Harlem” a surreal quality—concerns the raw, unprocessed bale of cotton. Where did it come from and what is it doing in Harlem? Nobody ever answers this question.
Initially, when we first see the Reverend Deke O'Malley (Calvin Lockhart of “Dark of the Sun”), he is riding in a Rolls Royce, cruising through gritty Harlem streets to a rally for his "Back To Africa" campaign. A gold-colored armored car with the black silhouette cut-out of a luxury liner displayed prominently on its roof follows. Rev. Deke refers to this ship as ‘Black Beauty.’ He is selling tickets for it at a $100 minimum to take African-Americans back to Africa, away from the white man and his rats and poverty. Although the white establishment supports Deke, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed believe Deke is swindling poor blacks out of their hard earned dollars. During the rally, Deke explains that God anointed him while he was in jail to build an ark and take his people back to Africa. While this self-proclaimed Noah assures blacks he can provide them with a better way of life away from racist white America, masked thugs in orange suits armed with submachine gun shoot up the gathering and rifle the safe in Deke’s gold-armored truck. They kill one of Deke’s uniformed guards, John (Tony Brubaker of “Slaughter's Big Rip-Off”), and his wife Mabel watches him die. The robbers careen off in a meat truck with Deke following them and Gravedigger and Coffin Ed in hot pursuit.
During the chase, a cotton bale tumbles from the rear of the truck onto the sidewalk. The robbers strafe Gravedigger and Coffin Ed. Our heroes collide with a produce wagon transporting watermelons. Eventually, the robber’s truck and the armored car crash and burn up. Meanwhile, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed search for Deke. They visit his girlfriend, Iris (Judy Pace of “Three in the Attic”), and question her with luck about Deke’s whereabouts. While they are interrogating Iris, Sergeant Jarema (Dick Sabol of “Come Back Charleston Blue”) enters and informs them Lieutenant Anderson (Eugene Roche of “The Happening”), wants them at the scene of the accident. They order Jarema stay behind to keep an eye on Iris. Iris taunts Jarema into having sex with her. She makes him wear a brown paper bag. While he is putting on the bag, she escapes. Jarema locks himself out of her apartment, completely naked in the hallway for the other residents to see.
Captain Bryce (John Anderson of “Young Billy Young”) reprimands our heroes for suspecting that Rev. Deke O’Malley is a confidence artist. Bryce points out that the State Department and other high-prolife white groups have the highest regard for O’Malley. Later, Bryce complains to Anderson about their behavior. Deke decides to stay out of sight and conduct his own investigation. He convinces the wife of one of his dead guards to let him stay with her. Eventually, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed get Iris to inform on Deke and he goes to jail, but his attorney gets him out. Everybody is looking now for the bale of cotton that contains the stolen $87-thousand. Uncle Budd (Red Foxx of “Sanford & Son”) finds the bale and sells it for $25 to Abe Goodman. A mysterious stranger in black with a beret, Calhoun (J.D. Cannon of “Lawman”), visits Uncle Budd on his junk barge and inquires about the bale of cotton. Calhoun comes on tough until Deke’s second-in-command Barry (Teddy Wilson of “Cleopatra Jones”) confronts him and runs him off. Uncle Budd buys the cotton bale back for $30 from Goodman. Later, that night, Calhoun and his gang and Deke and his men converge on Goodman’s Junkyard. A firefight erupts and Digger is nearly struck by a truck. Nevertheless, our heroes nab Deke, haul him in for questioning, and expose him for the swindler that he is. Iris, who was found unconscious at Mabel Hill’s apartment, has told the authorities that Deke hired impostors to masquerade as the District Attorney’s Office. These impostors showed up at Deke’s rally moments before the orange jump-suit clad gunners raked the spectators with gunfire and killed John Hill.
Davis dilutes the thrills and chills of the meat truck & armored car pursuit scene with four smaller scenes within it. These four sub-scenes feature mild comedy, while the primary scene depicts a chase through the streets of New York City. The first sub-scene involves a guy trying to attract the attention of three lovely ladies strolling on the sidewalk. None ever acknowledge his existence. The second involves a hustler stealing a rack of dresses from a street vendor when the chase momentarily distracts him. The third concerns a stoned individual trying to ignite a joint. The smoker staggers into the street and miraculously neither the armored truck nor the police cruiser collide with him. This gag resembles the physical comedy that Buster Keaton practiced in silent movies. The fourth gag involves a street artist painting an expressionist portrait of a gullible Christian woman while the pickpocket Early Riser wields a pair of scissors to cut through her skirt to steal the purse that she is clutching between her legs. These four sub-scenes feature mild comedy, while the primary scene depicts a straight-forward chase through the streets of New York City that ends with the pickpocket being struck and killed. During the chase, the gunmen in the meat truck riddle the unmarked police car, shatter its window into shards, blow out its headlights, and obliterate the outside rearview mirrors. Oops, the driver’s outside rear view reappears after bullets have torn it off the door when our heroes crash into a watermelon wagon.
Geoffrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques make a believable pair of cops who interact as if they have known each other for a long time. As Coffin Ed, St. Jacques is the hard-nosed detective of the two with a short fuse who prefers to get physical with suspects, meaning pummel them with his knuckled up fists. During a confrontation with a black street vigilante gang, our heroes are compared to monsters. The beret wearing, tan-uniform clad brothers refer to Gravedigger as 'King Kong' and Coffin Ed as 'Frankenstein.' As the villain, Calvin Lockhart gives a dynamic performance and makes a serviceable villain.
Director Ossie Davis and television scribe Arnold Pearl penned the screenplay from Chester Himes’ novel. Some of the dialogue is very sharp as are the blaxploitation slogans: “Keep it black till I get back.” “Is that black enough for you?” Several messages pervade this above-average crime thriller about the search for stolen loot. First, the meek shall inherit the Earth. Second, crime doesn’t pay and criminals have to pay to ply their criminal vocation. Harlem blacks should control Harlem, not the Italian mafia. Our heroes force the Italian mafia to turn over their Harlem operation to a Black racketeer. Black women can outsmart white men. One black woman is depicted as a ‘stone fox,’ and she makes a buffoon of a cretinous white police sergeant. The interesting question that arises but is never resolved—and by extension gives “Cotton Comes to Harlem” a surreal quality—concerns the raw, unprocessed bale of cotton. Where did it come from and what is it doing in Harlem? Nobody ever answers this question.
Monday, March 22, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF ''THE BOUNTY HUNTER" (2010)
"The Bounty Hunter" (* out of ****) is not a rewarding experience. This lightweight but disposable comedy of errors about a grumpy bail bondsman up to his ears in gambling debts who must track down his investigative journalist ex-wife and take her into custody for bumping an NYPD police horse lacks momentum, coherence, and surprises. Indeed, the two leads--gorgeous blond Jennifer Aniston and rugged unshaven Gerard Butler--radiate more than enough physical chemistry, but a lackluster script lets them down. "Hitch" director Andy Tennant and "See Jane Run" scenarist Sarah Thorp have created an interesting premise packed with irony, but they blew it by having our attractive leads bicker with each other more often bash the bad guys in this lolly-gagging 110 minute misfire. Although it struggles to combine comedy with suspense as hilariously as both the Robert De Niro & Charles Grodin bounty hunting comedy "Midnight Run" (1988) and the witty Clint Eastwood & Bernadette Peters saga "Pink Cadillac" (1989) did, "The Bounty Hunter" rarely succeeds with either comedy or suspense. Nothing adds up here in this artificial romance about a divorced couple who rediscover their affection for each other.
New York Daily Times investigative reporter Nicole Hurley (Jennifer Aniston of "Marley & Me")receives a tip that a NYPD cop who leaped off a rooftop may not have committed suicide. Meanwhile, she ignores a summons to appear in court and pursues a red hot lead that may land her a scoop about the cop's mysterious death as well as police corruption. Nicole ditches her court date when her informant, Jimmy (Adam Rose of "The Squid and the Whale"), calls her up frantically as she is about to set foot in the courthouse and demands $500 with the story of a lifetime. Before our heroine can reach Jimmy, a trigger-happy thug with a gun, Mahler (Peter Greene of "Pulp Fiction"), abducts him in broad daylight. Back at the courthouse, the irate judge (Lynda Gravatt of "Landlocked") issues a bench warrant for Nicole's arrest. Ironically, former NYPD Detective Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler of "300") is pleading for more jobs when his boss Sid (Jeff Garlin of "RoboCop 3") hands him the task of hauling his ex-spouse to the hoosegow. Sid wonders if he is making the right decision when Milo reacts with ecstatic joy. Nicole and he were married for all of nine months before they got a divorce. Nicole's career soared as a result of their divorce, while Milo's career went down the crapper.
Simultaneously, Milo has been dodging two tenacious debt collectors. He owes them approximately $11-thousand dollars and needs the dough from Nicole's bond to pay them off. Naturally, when he cannot find Nicole, Milo contacts his former mother-in-law, a loony Atlantic City lounge singer, Kitty Hurley (Christine Baranski of "Mamma Mia!"), who sends him off to a nearby racetrack. Nicole, it seems, believes that she can take advantage of all the good luck that abandons other people at the racetrack to help her in her quest. Nicole's bubble bursts when Milo shows up and stuffs her unceremoniously into the trunk of a powder-blue limo. Inevitably, this leads to a succession of Nicole escaping from Milo and Milo recapturing her before our hero finally encounters Mahler. Not only does the murderous Mahler sideswipe Milo's car to get at Nicole, but he also exchanges gunfire with Milo. Milo starts taking Nicole seriously, especially when she implicates his former NYPD detective partner Bobby (Dorian Missick of "Rachel Getting Married") as a dirty cop. Naturally, Milo refuses to believe that Bobby, who gave Nicole away to him at their wedding, could be involved in corruption of any kind.
An array of harebrained supporting characters does nothing to supplement the humor in "The Bounty Hunter," except to make it seem even more labored. First, Irene (Cathy Moriarty of "Raging Bull") dispatches two incompetent morons to collect the big bucks that Milo owes her. Neither nitwit has any success, however, at recouping Irene's dough. Second, rather than nabbing Milo, they mistake an idiotic New York Daily News reporter, Stewart (Jason Sudeikis of "The Rocker"), for Milo. Stewart desperately wants to team up with Nicole on the suicide story. Nicole refuses to have anything to do with Stewart, but he stubbornly declines to take no for an answer. Repeatedly, Nicole turns Stewart down every time that he pleads to collaborate with her. Eventually, Stewart ends up following Milo around so that he can contact Nicole. At one point, Stewart checks the trunk of Milo's car because he thinks that Milo may still have Nicole stashed in it. One of the debt collectors traces Milo's car. When he sees Stewart tampering with the trunk, he assumes that Stewart is Milo. Nothing that Stewart can say persuades the debt collector to let him go. Instead, the debt collector brings Stewart back so Irene can torture him. Irene and company go to work on Stewart before they discover that they are breaking the wrong guy's legs! This exasperating routine turns into a running gag that lacks humor. Eventually, Irene and her henchmen realize that they have made a terrible mistake. Consequently, they call in a racetrack physician who brandishes a giant syringe filled with horse tranquilizer to alleviate Stewart's pain. Unfortunately, this subplot generates little humor, largely because Stewart gets what he deserves for behaving like such an obnoxious lout.
Predictably, everything works out for our heroic couple, but the story is so incoherent and humorless that you don't care what happens to them, or for that matter Stewart in this lackluster opposites-attract-romantic-comedy-thriller.
New York Daily Times investigative reporter Nicole Hurley (Jennifer Aniston of "Marley & Me")receives a tip that a NYPD cop who leaped off a rooftop may not have committed suicide. Meanwhile, she ignores a summons to appear in court and pursues a red hot lead that may land her a scoop about the cop's mysterious death as well as police corruption. Nicole ditches her court date when her informant, Jimmy (Adam Rose of "The Squid and the Whale"), calls her up frantically as she is about to set foot in the courthouse and demands $500 with the story of a lifetime. Before our heroine can reach Jimmy, a trigger-happy thug with a gun, Mahler (Peter Greene of "Pulp Fiction"), abducts him in broad daylight. Back at the courthouse, the irate judge (Lynda Gravatt of "Landlocked") issues a bench warrant for Nicole's arrest. Ironically, former NYPD Detective Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler of "300") is pleading for more jobs when his boss Sid (Jeff Garlin of "RoboCop 3") hands him the task of hauling his ex-spouse to the hoosegow. Sid wonders if he is making the right decision when Milo reacts with ecstatic joy. Nicole and he were married for all of nine months before they got a divorce. Nicole's career soared as a result of their divorce, while Milo's career went down the crapper.
Simultaneously, Milo has been dodging two tenacious debt collectors. He owes them approximately $11-thousand dollars and needs the dough from Nicole's bond to pay them off. Naturally, when he cannot find Nicole, Milo contacts his former mother-in-law, a loony Atlantic City lounge singer, Kitty Hurley (Christine Baranski of "Mamma Mia!"), who sends him off to a nearby racetrack. Nicole, it seems, believes that she can take advantage of all the good luck that abandons other people at the racetrack to help her in her quest. Nicole's bubble bursts when Milo shows up and stuffs her unceremoniously into the trunk of a powder-blue limo. Inevitably, this leads to a succession of Nicole escaping from Milo and Milo recapturing her before our hero finally encounters Mahler. Not only does the murderous Mahler sideswipe Milo's car to get at Nicole, but he also exchanges gunfire with Milo. Milo starts taking Nicole seriously, especially when she implicates his former NYPD detective partner Bobby (Dorian Missick of "Rachel Getting Married") as a dirty cop. Naturally, Milo refuses to believe that Bobby, who gave Nicole away to him at their wedding, could be involved in corruption of any kind.
An array of harebrained supporting characters does nothing to supplement the humor in "The Bounty Hunter," except to make it seem even more labored. First, Irene (Cathy Moriarty of "Raging Bull") dispatches two incompetent morons to collect the big bucks that Milo owes her. Neither nitwit has any success, however, at recouping Irene's dough. Second, rather than nabbing Milo, they mistake an idiotic New York Daily News reporter, Stewart (Jason Sudeikis of "The Rocker"), for Milo. Stewart desperately wants to team up with Nicole on the suicide story. Nicole refuses to have anything to do with Stewart, but he stubbornly declines to take no for an answer. Repeatedly, Nicole turns Stewart down every time that he pleads to collaborate with her. Eventually, Stewart ends up following Milo around so that he can contact Nicole. At one point, Stewart checks the trunk of Milo's car because he thinks that Milo may still have Nicole stashed in it. One of the debt collectors traces Milo's car. When he sees Stewart tampering with the trunk, he assumes that Stewart is Milo. Nothing that Stewart can say persuades the debt collector to let him go. Instead, the debt collector brings Stewart back so Irene can torture him. Irene and company go to work on Stewart before they discover that they are breaking the wrong guy's legs! This exasperating routine turns into a running gag that lacks humor. Eventually, Irene and her henchmen realize that they have made a terrible mistake. Consequently, they call in a racetrack physician who brandishes a giant syringe filled with horse tranquilizer to alleviate Stewart's pain. Unfortunately, this subplot generates little humor, largely because Stewart gets what he deserves for behaving like such an obnoxious lout.
Predictably, everything works out for our heroic couple, but the story is so incoherent and humorless that you don't care what happens to them, or for that matter Stewart in this lackluster opposites-attract-romantic-comedy-thriller.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF ''COP OUT'' (2010)
This uninspired police procedural comedy of errors from "Clerks" director Kevin Smith and TV scribes Robb & Mark Cullen teams action icon Bruce Willis up with "30 Rock" comic Tracy Morgan as two N.Y.P.D. homicide detectives who tangle with a gang of trigger-happy Hispanic drug dealers. Smith's previous comedies were coarse, loquacious, low-budget efforts about losers on the fringes of society. As classic as "Clerks," "Dogma," "Chasing Amy," and "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" are, these imaginative but niche comedies never scored big bucks at the box office, so Smith decided to helm a formulaic genre piece that he knew his father would appreciate. Interestingly enough, Smith didn't pen the screenplay as he usually does, but the film bears visages of his irreverent humor. "Cop Out" (** OUT OF ****) qualifies as a predictable mainstream law & order thriller that delivers fewer thrills than it does gags. The marginal humor is at times crude, especially an interrogation room scene, but you won't find yourself laughing out loud at some of the jokes that Smith's usual characters, Jay and Silent Bob, would crack or pranks that they would perform for their gross-out hilarity. Half-comic and half-dramatic, this 107-minute, R-rated feature lacks memorable characters in memorable predicaments. Reportedly, "Cop Out" is a homage to 1980s' cop movies with the stereotypically intolerant captain who complains to his overzealous underlings about their questionable actions. Another allusion to 1980s cop movies is the charismatic but hardly classic Harold Faltermeyer synthesized score that the composer of "Top Gun" and "Beverly Hills Cop" came out of retirement to contribute to this undistinguished opus.
Detective Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis of "Die Hard") and Detective Paul Hodges (Tray Morgan of "The Longest Yard") have been partners for nine years. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine who would tolerate an idiot like Paul. During the questioning of a suspect at the outset, Paul enters the interrogation room and tries to masquerade as a crazed gunman. A peanut gallery of spectators on the other side of the interrogation room window chuckle as Paul struggles to get the suspect to open up. Jimmy shakes his head incredulously as Paul quotes movie dialogue in his tough guy act to loosen the suspect's tongue. Surprisingly, Paul's lunatic performance succeeds, and the suspect spills the beans about Latin drug dealers. Our heroes stake-out the suspect's cell phone store. Unfortunately, not only does the Latino ice the suspect with a submachine gun, but also he eludes our heroes so that they look like amateurs. Predictably, Captain Romans (Sean Cullen of "Cop Land") chews them out because they lost the suspect and shot-up the neighborhood. Moreover, Romans suspends both Jimmy and Paul, because their slipshod antics fouled up two of their fellow detectives, Hunsaker (Kevin Pollak of "Deterrence") and Barry Mangold (Adam Brody of "Jennifer's Body"), who were investigating the Hispanics.
Captain Romans' suspension could not have come at a worse time for our protagonist. Jimmy learns that his daughter, Ava (Michelle Trachtenberg of "17 Again"), wants a dream wedding and her stepfather Roy (Jason Lee of "Dogma") wants to foot the $48-thousand dollar wedding if Jimmy cannot pay for it. Jimmy insists on paying for it. He decides to sell a collectible baseball card of National League player Andy Pafko that is worth of bundle. Jimmy takes the baseball card to a dealer, but he loses it when a light-on-his-feet thief, Dave (Seann William Scott of "Role Models"), knocks Jimmy down with a tazer during a daylight robbery and pinches the card. Ironically, Paul is standing out front the entire time jabbering on his cell phone with his wife without the slightest idea what is happening inside the store.
Meanwhile, an ambitious Spanish drug dealer decides to take over some new territory. The baseball card thief sells Jimmy's card to this murderous Mexican (Guillermo Diaz of "The Virgin of Juarez") who is obsessed with baseball memorabilia. Poh-Boy--as he is called--has a BMW that thieves have stolen out from under the noses of his henchmen. Poh-Boy agrees to fork over the baseball card if Jimmy and Paul can get his car back. Several people get shot along the way, but Smith doesn't wallow in blood & gore the way a real 1980s movie would have. Indeed, "Cop Out" is no white-knuckled, "Lethal Weapon" type, high-octane cop saga. Kevin Pollak and Adam Brody are okay as the second-string pair of sartorial cops that shadow our heroes. The only decent gag that Smith handles with finesse concerns Paul's jealous behavior about his gorgeous wife. Paul suspects that his sexy spouse, Debbie (Rashida Jones of "I Love You, Man") is having an affair with a hot young stud next door so he puts a teddy bear with a nanny cam in their bedroom to monitor her.
Basically, Willis and Morgan kindle little chemistry with their sophomoric shenanigans. They walk through this lackluster shoot'em up with Willis as the gruff, seasoned partner who doesn't need a moron like Paul. Paul cannot say homage right and Smith milks this joke far beyond its use. The death of Poh-Boy detracts from his overall villainous stature because our heroes eliminate him with far too much ease. The plot really gets wacky when Jimmy bails out Dave, the baseball card thief, and sends him into Poh-Boy's house to recover his card. The usually agile thief slips and knocks himself out cold, so cold in fact that our heroes believe that he is dead. This set-up provides the best joke that Smith plays out during the end credits. "Cop Out" conjures up forgettable characters, forgettable situations, and consistently forgettable gags.
Detective Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis of "Die Hard") and Detective Paul Hodges (Tray Morgan of "The Longest Yard") have been partners for nine years. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine who would tolerate an idiot like Paul. During the questioning of a suspect at the outset, Paul enters the interrogation room and tries to masquerade as a crazed gunman. A peanut gallery of spectators on the other side of the interrogation room window chuckle as Paul struggles to get the suspect to open up. Jimmy shakes his head incredulously as Paul quotes movie dialogue in his tough guy act to loosen the suspect's tongue. Surprisingly, Paul's lunatic performance succeeds, and the suspect spills the beans about Latin drug dealers. Our heroes stake-out the suspect's cell phone store. Unfortunately, not only does the Latino ice the suspect with a submachine gun, but also he eludes our heroes so that they look like amateurs. Predictably, Captain Romans (Sean Cullen of "Cop Land") chews them out because they lost the suspect and shot-up the neighborhood. Moreover, Romans suspends both Jimmy and Paul, because their slipshod antics fouled up two of their fellow detectives, Hunsaker (Kevin Pollak of "Deterrence") and Barry Mangold (Adam Brody of "Jennifer's Body"), who were investigating the Hispanics.
Captain Romans' suspension could not have come at a worse time for our protagonist. Jimmy learns that his daughter, Ava (Michelle Trachtenberg of "17 Again"), wants a dream wedding and her stepfather Roy (Jason Lee of "Dogma") wants to foot the $48-thousand dollar wedding if Jimmy cannot pay for it. Jimmy insists on paying for it. He decides to sell a collectible baseball card of National League player Andy Pafko that is worth of bundle. Jimmy takes the baseball card to a dealer, but he loses it when a light-on-his-feet thief, Dave (Seann William Scott of "Role Models"), knocks Jimmy down with a tazer during a daylight robbery and pinches the card. Ironically, Paul is standing out front the entire time jabbering on his cell phone with his wife without the slightest idea what is happening inside the store.
Meanwhile, an ambitious Spanish drug dealer decides to take over some new territory. The baseball card thief sells Jimmy's card to this murderous Mexican (Guillermo Diaz of "The Virgin of Juarez") who is obsessed with baseball memorabilia. Poh-Boy--as he is called--has a BMW that thieves have stolen out from under the noses of his henchmen. Poh-Boy agrees to fork over the baseball card if Jimmy and Paul can get his car back. Several people get shot along the way, but Smith doesn't wallow in blood & gore the way a real 1980s movie would have. Indeed, "Cop Out" is no white-knuckled, "Lethal Weapon" type, high-octane cop saga. Kevin Pollak and Adam Brody are okay as the second-string pair of sartorial cops that shadow our heroes. The only decent gag that Smith handles with finesse concerns Paul's jealous behavior about his gorgeous wife. Paul suspects that his sexy spouse, Debbie (Rashida Jones of "I Love You, Man") is having an affair with a hot young stud next door so he puts a teddy bear with a nanny cam in their bedroom to monitor her.
Basically, Willis and Morgan kindle little chemistry with their sophomoric shenanigans. They walk through this lackluster shoot'em up with Willis as the gruff, seasoned partner who doesn't need a moron like Paul. Paul cannot say homage right and Smith milks this joke far beyond its use. The death of Poh-Boy detracts from his overall villainous stature because our heroes eliminate him with far too much ease. The plot really gets wacky when Jimmy bails out Dave, the baseball card thief, and sends him into Poh-Boy's house to recover his card. The usually agile thief slips and knocks himself out cold, so cold in fact that our heroes believe that he is dead. This set-up provides the best joke that Smith plays out during the end credits. "Cop Out" conjures up forgettable characters, forgettable situations, and consistently forgettable gags.
FILM REVIEW OF ''BROOKLYN'S FINEST'' (2010)
“Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua’s new bullet-riddled NYPD thriller “Brooklyn’s Finest” (** OUT OF ****) suffers from too much irony. Three seasoned New York City policemen struggle against forces beyond their control to ensure their survival, promote the prosperity of their family, or live by code of loyalty. Indeed, this gritty urban shoot’em up, starring Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, Don Cheadle and Wesley Snipes, recycles the usual inventory of clichés about the boys-in-blue both on and off the beat. The origins of multi-storied police procedurals like “Brooklyn’s Finest” can be traced to either those post-Watergate, Joseph Wambaugh-inspired law and order street epics, such as director Richard Fleischer’s “The New Centurions” (1972) and director Robert Aldritch’s “The Choirboys” (1977) or director Sidney Lumet’s police yarns, including “The Anderson Tapes” (1970), “Serpico” (1973), and “Prince of the City” (1981) Predictable, disillusioning, even humorless, this Overture Films release manages to surpass earlier convoluted cop dramas such as “Pride & Glory” (2008) with William Norton and “We Own the Night” (2007) with Mark Wahlberg. Not only do the protagonists in “Brooklyn’s Finest” radiate minimal charisma, but also the cops in supporting roles appear nothing less than incompetent. One guns down a fellow cop by mistake. A rookie cop dies in the line-of-duty and other rookie botches an arrest and kills an African-American youth. While he musters enough momentum to keep this 125 minute cops versus drug dealers saga crackling along at a brisk clip, Fuqua cannot compensate for “Sleeper Cell” scenarist Michael C. Martin’s lackluster narrative that delivers virtually no surprises. Mind you, there are a couple of jolts that will catch you off guard, but good as they are they do not salvage this film. Worse, parts of “Brooklyn’s Finest” emerge as incoherent, and Fuqua never gives us a chance to warm up to the characters. This is not the kind of cop movie that lures in recruits. Technically, this proficiently produced chronicle about crime busters in the Big Apple paints law enforcement in ignoble colors.
“Brooklyn’s Finest” chronicles the lives of three NYPD cops. The action opens with Sal (Ethan Hawke of “Training Day”) chatting one evening with a criminal, Carlo (Vincent D'Onofrio of “Full Metal Jacket”), in a sedan near a cemetery. We learn Sal is an overworked, underpaid tactical narcotics cop with a growing Catholic family. Not only does he have three children, but also his asthmatic wife, Angela (Lili Taylor of “High Fidelity”), who is suffering from wood mold, is pregnant with twins. Worse, Sal’s house is too small for his brood and he is struggling on a cop’s salary to make ends meet. Of course, the ends don’t meet for Sal and he turns to crime. He kills gangsters for their illicit money and he ponders taking money from drug busts, but his misguided, well-intentioned partner tries to get him not to. Sal is desperately trying to come up with enough cash to get his family into a bigger house. White-haired Eddie (Richard Gere of “Internal Affairs”) awakens in bed alone at the start of a new day and practices suicide by jamming his service revolver into his mouth. He is seven days away from retirement and universally reviled by members of his own department because he has descended into the depths of alcoholism. Eddie does his best to keep out of action. He has been beating the mean streets of Brooklyn so long that he has lost his desire to be a cop. He finds himself stuck with mentoring rookie cops and he cannot stand their enthusiasm or their inexperience. Finally, Tango (Don Cheadle of “Traitor”) is an undercover narcotics officer who is separated from his wife. Tango has been undercover so long that he is beginning to think like a mobster. He pleads with his liaison, Lt. Bill Hobarts (Will Patton of “The Fourth Kind”), to take him off the streets. In fact, Tango served a stretch in prison as an undercover cop and bonded with a big-time gangster Caz (Wesley Snipes of “Blade: Trinity”) with whom he sympathizes because the gangster has been given so many wrong deals. The upper echelon want to arrest Caz and send him back to jail and they call on Tango to inform on the man who saved his life while in prison. Tango refuses to help them, especially a tough-as-nail female cop, Agent Smith (Ellen Barkin of “Ocean's Thirteen”), who is prepared to exhaust every possibility to put Caz back behind bars and perhaps even worse.
Director Antoine Fuqua and scenarist Michael C. Martin carefully build the pressure with which these cops have to contend. Ironically, these guys run into each other occasionally during the action, but they are not acquainted with each other in any way. For example, Eddie and a rookie cop are entering a store when Tango emerges. They nudge each other and you can see Tango’s hackles rise. Tango is so messed up that he contemplates killing a couple of New Jersey State Troopers in one scene. Eddie struggles with the two rookie cops that he trains to stay calm under pressure, but they cannot control themselves. Like Tango, Sal has gone too far and searches for opportunities to take advantage of drug dealers, gun them down, and appropriate their cash, but he never seems to be able to acquire enough cash to buy his dream house. Unfortunately, when the pressure cooker of tension explodes in the last quarter hour, audiences get no relief and little closure from the outcome. Fuqua and Martin spent more time moralizing about the fate of these three than entertaining us with snappy action scenes. Ironically, everything works out, like the initial dialogue between Carlo and Sal about the warped way that wrongs making rights and rights making wrongs. What little closure “Brooklyn’s Finest” provides at fade-out is not enough to make you feel good. Instead, this handsomely produced, atmospheric, well-acted cop drama brings you down more often than it gives you a boost.
“Brooklyn’s Finest” chronicles the lives of three NYPD cops. The action opens with Sal (Ethan Hawke of “Training Day”) chatting one evening with a criminal, Carlo (Vincent D'Onofrio of “Full Metal Jacket”), in a sedan near a cemetery. We learn Sal is an overworked, underpaid tactical narcotics cop with a growing Catholic family. Not only does he have three children, but also his asthmatic wife, Angela (Lili Taylor of “High Fidelity”), who is suffering from wood mold, is pregnant with twins. Worse, Sal’s house is too small for his brood and he is struggling on a cop’s salary to make ends meet. Of course, the ends don’t meet for Sal and he turns to crime. He kills gangsters for their illicit money and he ponders taking money from drug busts, but his misguided, well-intentioned partner tries to get him not to. Sal is desperately trying to come up with enough cash to get his family into a bigger house. White-haired Eddie (Richard Gere of “Internal Affairs”) awakens in bed alone at the start of a new day and practices suicide by jamming his service revolver into his mouth. He is seven days away from retirement and universally reviled by members of his own department because he has descended into the depths of alcoholism. Eddie does his best to keep out of action. He has been beating the mean streets of Brooklyn so long that he has lost his desire to be a cop. He finds himself stuck with mentoring rookie cops and he cannot stand their enthusiasm or their inexperience. Finally, Tango (Don Cheadle of “Traitor”) is an undercover narcotics officer who is separated from his wife. Tango has been undercover so long that he is beginning to think like a mobster. He pleads with his liaison, Lt. Bill Hobarts (Will Patton of “The Fourth Kind”), to take him off the streets. In fact, Tango served a stretch in prison as an undercover cop and bonded with a big-time gangster Caz (Wesley Snipes of “Blade: Trinity”) with whom he sympathizes because the gangster has been given so many wrong deals. The upper echelon want to arrest Caz and send him back to jail and they call on Tango to inform on the man who saved his life while in prison. Tango refuses to help them, especially a tough-as-nail female cop, Agent Smith (Ellen Barkin of “Ocean's Thirteen”), who is prepared to exhaust every possibility to put Caz back behind bars and perhaps even worse.
Director Antoine Fuqua and scenarist Michael C. Martin carefully build the pressure with which these cops have to contend. Ironically, these guys run into each other occasionally during the action, but they are not acquainted with each other in any way. For example, Eddie and a rookie cop are entering a store when Tango emerges. They nudge each other and you can see Tango’s hackles rise. Tango is so messed up that he contemplates killing a couple of New Jersey State Troopers in one scene. Eddie struggles with the two rookie cops that he trains to stay calm under pressure, but they cannot control themselves. Like Tango, Sal has gone too far and searches for opportunities to take advantage of drug dealers, gun them down, and appropriate their cash, but he never seems to be able to acquire enough cash to buy his dream house. Unfortunately, when the pressure cooker of tension explodes in the last quarter hour, audiences get no relief and little closure from the outcome. Fuqua and Martin spent more time moralizing about the fate of these three than entertaining us with snappy action scenes. Ironically, everything works out, like the initial dialogue between Carlo and Sal about the warped way that wrongs making rights and rights making wrongs. What little closure “Brooklyn’s Finest” provides at fade-out is not enough to make you feel good. Instead, this handsomely produced, atmospheric, well-acted cop drama brings you down more often than it gives you a boost.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
FILM REVIEW OF ''THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3"
As the second remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," the latest version starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta manages to be a slick and suspenseful white-knuckler. Nevertheless, this glossy new epic with its numerous narrative changes doesn't surpass director Joseph Sargent's 1974 original that toplined Walter Matthau & Robert Shaw. "Top Gun" director Tony Scott and Oscar-winning "L.A. Confidential" scenarist Brian Helgeland have cherry picked scenes and ideas from both author John Godey's bestselling novel and Sargent's original. Sadly, Scott and Helgeland have altered irreparably the characters of hero and villain in the name of political correctness. Not only have they changed the hero from a Transit Authority lieutenant to a corrupt subway employee, but they have also altered the villain from an out-of-work mercenary to a sleazy Wall Street crook.
Furthermore, the second remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" (**1/2 out of ****) suffers from a dire lack of credibility. Denzel Washington's last minute transformation from a non-violent subway dispatcher to a gun-toting crusader who can commandeer a vehicle so he can pursue the villain isn't persuasive enough to pass muster. Additionally, the new technology that the film features is marginal when you consider either what Scott and Helgeland have omitted or ignored as solid story elements. Mind you, Scott generates more than enough tension to make you put you on the edge of yours seat while the villains hold hostages, but the surprises are few and far between in this R-rated actioneer. Consequently, we have a tainted hero who isn't a professional like Walter Matthau's Transit Cop in the original. Incidentally, I missed the 1989 made-for-TV remake with "Miami Vice" star James Edward Olmos. Anyway, an ordinary guy is now the hero, while the villain is an egotistical lout. Happily, actor John Travolta delivers a strong, wholly believable performance as the unhinged maniac who planned this hijacking.
As Garber's murderous adversary, Ryder (John Travolta) is two weeks out of prison with a tattoo on his neck, a bandit mustache, and a willingness to blow the brains out of hostages at point blank range. He is an ex-Wall Street broker who tampered with the city of New York's pension fund, and he is using the hijacking incident to play the stock market for bigger gains. Helgeland has concocted some good ideas, such as Ryder's stock market scheme, but he has provided some bad things, too. For example, heroic subway dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington of "Man on Fire") is suspected of accepting a $35-thousand dollar bribe during a business trip to Japan and has been demoted. The day that Ryder (John Travolta of "Wild Hogs") occupies the eponymous subway train with his three fellow conspirators and demands $10-million from NYC, Garber is working as the dispatcher. Ryder contacts him and makes his demands. When Garber's supervisor relieves him, Ryder threatens to kill a hostage if they don't recall Garber. Ryder simply doesn't trust anybody, but he believes Garber because the latter admitted that he took a bribe in the presence of eye-witnesses.
The villains, a quartet of submachine gun toting goons, hijack the subway train and stop it in the middle of a busy tunnel. They disconnect all the cars from the engine car and let the motorman and the passengers trudge back to the last platform. A cop tries to intervene as the transfer is going down, and the badguys riddle him with a hail of bullets. Now, the badguys hold the 17 passengers and the conductor from the first car, shut the power off to the tracks, and establish their own wireless access so that they can monitor the Internet as news about them develops in the city. During this interval, Ryder surfs the web and discovers that Garber has been accused of bribery.
One of Helgeland's bad ideas is a teenage passenger with a lap-top computer. When Ryder brings the subway train to a jarring halt, the computer flies out of the kid's hands and slides underneath the seats across the aisle from him. The kid can clearly see his idiotic girlfriend on the 16-inch monitor begging to know what has happened. Initially, after the train halts, the Internet connection between the kid and his girlfriend is disrupted. Later, after the villains establish power so that Ryder can monitor the stock market, the kid's lap-top comes back on-line. Eventually, the girlfriend arranges things up so that her boyfriend's computer is streaming live video from the train that apparently nobody else but the cops can view. Moreover, Ryder's cretinous cohorts patrol the aisle but cannot spot a lap-top computer with its glowing picture screen. Talk about a serious lapse in credibility! Naturally, everything above ground goes amok in New York City. The unhappy NYC mayor (James Gandolfini of "The Sopranos") rushes to the subway command center to assure Ryder that New York will pay the ransom. Incredibly, the city has a short length of time to count the cash and deliver by police couriers with motorcycle patrolmen blocking intersections across the city as the couriers race as breakneck speed. At one point, an accident occurs and the courier vehicle is smashed and sent flying off a bridge to crash into on-coming traffic in the lanes under the bridge!
Scott does a good job of ramping up the action and keeping things tense both above and below ground as Ryder's clock ticks to a dangerous deadline. Altogether, Scott's "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" isn't a bad movie, but it isn't half as good as Joseph Sargent's original nail-biter. Travolta makes a solid villain, unstable as all get-out, but Robert Shaw was better in the first film. If you haven't seen the 1974 original, then you don't know what you are missing. Prepare yourself for a great deal of profanity in "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" and several violent shoot-outs, especially one street shoot-out where two men perish in a barrage of gunfire.
Furthermore, the second remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" (**1/2 out of ****) suffers from a dire lack of credibility. Denzel Washington's last minute transformation from a non-violent subway dispatcher to a gun-toting crusader who can commandeer a vehicle so he can pursue the villain isn't persuasive enough to pass muster. Additionally, the new technology that the film features is marginal when you consider either what Scott and Helgeland have omitted or ignored as solid story elements. Mind you, Scott generates more than enough tension to make you put you on the edge of yours seat while the villains hold hostages, but the surprises are few and far between in this R-rated actioneer. Consequently, we have a tainted hero who isn't a professional like Walter Matthau's Transit Cop in the original. Incidentally, I missed the 1989 made-for-TV remake with "Miami Vice" star James Edward Olmos. Anyway, an ordinary guy is now the hero, while the villain is an egotistical lout. Happily, actor John Travolta delivers a strong, wholly believable performance as the unhinged maniac who planned this hijacking.
As Garber's murderous adversary, Ryder (John Travolta) is two weeks out of prison with a tattoo on his neck, a bandit mustache, and a willingness to blow the brains out of hostages at point blank range. He is an ex-Wall Street broker who tampered with the city of New York's pension fund, and he is using the hijacking incident to play the stock market for bigger gains. Helgeland has concocted some good ideas, such as Ryder's stock market scheme, but he has provided some bad things, too. For example, heroic subway dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington of "Man on Fire") is suspected of accepting a $35-thousand dollar bribe during a business trip to Japan and has been demoted. The day that Ryder (John Travolta of "Wild Hogs") occupies the eponymous subway train with his three fellow conspirators and demands $10-million from NYC, Garber is working as the dispatcher. Ryder contacts him and makes his demands. When Garber's supervisor relieves him, Ryder threatens to kill a hostage if they don't recall Garber. Ryder simply doesn't trust anybody, but he believes Garber because the latter admitted that he took a bribe in the presence of eye-witnesses.
The villains, a quartet of submachine gun toting goons, hijack the subway train and stop it in the middle of a busy tunnel. They disconnect all the cars from the engine car and let the motorman and the passengers trudge back to the last platform. A cop tries to intervene as the transfer is going down, and the badguys riddle him with a hail of bullets. Now, the badguys hold the 17 passengers and the conductor from the first car, shut the power off to the tracks, and establish their own wireless access so that they can monitor the Internet as news about them develops in the city. During this interval, Ryder surfs the web and discovers that Garber has been accused of bribery.
One of Helgeland's bad ideas is a teenage passenger with a lap-top computer. When Ryder brings the subway train to a jarring halt, the computer flies out of the kid's hands and slides underneath the seats across the aisle from him. The kid can clearly see his idiotic girlfriend on the 16-inch monitor begging to know what has happened. Initially, after the train halts, the Internet connection between the kid and his girlfriend is disrupted. Later, after the villains establish power so that Ryder can monitor the stock market, the kid's lap-top comes back on-line. Eventually, the girlfriend arranges things up so that her boyfriend's computer is streaming live video from the train that apparently nobody else but the cops can view. Moreover, Ryder's cretinous cohorts patrol the aisle but cannot spot a lap-top computer with its glowing picture screen. Talk about a serious lapse in credibility! Naturally, everything above ground goes amok in New York City. The unhappy NYC mayor (James Gandolfini of "The Sopranos") rushes to the subway command center to assure Ryder that New York will pay the ransom. Incredibly, the city has a short length of time to count the cash and deliver by police couriers with motorcycle patrolmen blocking intersections across the city as the couriers race as breakneck speed. At one point, an accident occurs and the courier vehicle is smashed and sent flying off a bridge to crash into on-coming traffic in the lanes under the bridge!
Scott does a good job of ramping up the action and keeping things tense both above and below ground as Ryder's clock ticks to a dangerous deadline. Altogether, Scott's "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" isn't a bad movie, but it isn't half as good as Joseph Sargent's original nail-biter. Travolta makes a solid villain, unstable as all get-out, but Robert Shaw was better in the first film. If you haven't seen the 1974 original, then you don't know what you are missing. Prepare yourself for a great deal of profanity in "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" and several violent shoot-outs, especially one street shoot-out where two men perish in a barrage of gunfire.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
FILM REVIEW OF ''RIGHTEOUS KILL''
"Fried Green Tomatoes" director Jon Avnet's new movie "Righteous Kill" qualifies as far from righteous. This gritty whodunit about corrupt cops with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino suffers from quite possibly the worst screenplay in film history. Some of Jean-Claude Van Damme's straight-to-video martial arts thrillers surpass this nonsense. "Inside Man" scenarist Russell Gewirtz gets it all wrong. Gewirtz takes the "Dirty Harry" sequel "Magnum Force" and rewrites it as an Agatha Christie mystery for tough guys. Indeed, sixty-five year old Robert De Niro quotes "Dirty Harry" at an Internal Affairs hearing when he observes, "Nothing wrong with a little shooting, as long as the right people get shot." Clearly, De Niro and Pacino made this clunker with its sloppy, incoherent, convoluted, unbelievable script for the bucks. "Righteous Kill" lacks excitement, suspense, and creativity. The eleventh hour revelation of the killer is so incredibly contrived that you wonder how they could have foisted this pathetic potboiler onto movie audiences. Everybody who buys a ticket to watch this tawdry tedium is expecting something as good as--if not better than--the two previous De Niro & Pacino pictures. Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather, Part 2" won a Best Picture Oscar in 1975, while "Miami Vice" creator Michael Mann's urban crime thriller "Heat" ranks as one of the great law & order epics. Righteous Kill" is, simply put, righteously ill in its criminal abuse of a stellar cast including Carla Gugino, Brian Dennehy, 50 Cent, John Leguizamo, Barry Primus, and Donnie Wahlberg, not to mention the hour and forty minutes that you'll waste watching it.
"Righteous Kill" involves vigilante justice. Several unsavory citizens die in this R-rated opus. A serial killer guns down a black drug dealer (Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson), a white rapist (Terry Serpico), a child killer (Frank John Hughes), a pedophile Catholic priest (Malachy McCourt) , a pimp, and a Russian wrestler (Oleg Taktarov) in cold-blood. The same killer leaves a poem on a card at each homicide. Talk about poetic justice! Homicide Detectives Thomas Cowan (Robert De Niro) and David Fisk (Al Pacino) have been partners for 30 years in the New York Police Department. An Internal Affairs investigator comments that Cowan & Fisk are closer than Lennon & McCartney. These two profane, sharp-shooting, tough-talking veterans have witnessed the seamy side of life and eventually it affects their mindset. Cowan and Fisk had to stand by helplessly while the courts cleared a child killer from a crime that he committed. A self-righteous Cowan plants evidence that convicts the child killer of another crime to put him behind bars. Cowan behaves like "Dirty Harry" and his partner Fisk describes him aptly as "a pit-bull on crack." Initially, Cowan and Fisk have no luck catching the serial killer and Detectives Simon Perez (John Leguizamo of "The Rock") and Ted Riley (Donnie Wahlberg of "Saw 2") join their investigation when one of their cases coincides with our heroes. Cowan and Perez hate each other because they have been bedding down a nymphomaniacal Crime Scene forensics expert, Karen Corelli (Carla Gugino of "American Gangster"), who loves rough sex. No matter what they do to solve the case, they cannot crack it, until Fisk suggests that the killer is a cop. Cowan suspects a disgruntled cop busted off the force has the motive. Meanwhile, the feud between Perez and Cowan fuels Perez's belief that Cowan is the murderer. Cowan admits he knew the priest and Lieutenant Hingis (a shrunken looking Brian Dennehy of "Silverado") puts him on a desk and allows the younger detectives to engineer a sting that will expose Cowan. Cowan's partner Fisk laughs in Hingis' face as well at Perez and Fisk.
Things begin to fall into place when one victim, the Russian, survives the killer's three bullets and the N.Y.P.D. guards his hospital room. The best mysteries give audiences the chance to figure them out. "Righteous Kill" deprives us crucial background material that would have made it far easier to fathom the killer's identity. Instead, Gewirtz and Avnet treat us to scenes where our heroes rarely get into any dangerous predicaments. Avnet stages a clumsy shoot out in an African-American nightspot, but every time somebody dies in "Righteous Kill" the crime is shown from the killer's perspective. Repeatedly, what you don't see and what you're not told about the protagonists keeps you in the dark. For example, we know De Niro and Pacino's characters only by their nicknames. The filmmakers refuse to establish the identities of either De Niro or Pacino from the start. The criminal investigation takes weird turns and red herrings—things designed to distract us—appear everywhere. Actually, the best clue to the killer's identity is broached early in the action, but you won't pay any attention to it because it seems to have little relevance.
Television series like CBS-TV's three "C.S.I." shows make this big-budget Hollywood whodunit look sophomoric. At one point, Lt. Hingis asks our heroes if they want to retire because they aren't making any headway. Neither Cowan nor Fisk are prepared to back down from this challenge, even if it means disaster for them. In that moment, De Niro and Pacino behave like 'Grumpy Old Cops' out to solve one last crime. Watching "Righteous Kill" will give you a bad case of the N.Y.P.D. Blues.
"Righteous Kill" involves vigilante justice. Several unsavory citizens die in this R-rated opus. A serial killer guns down a black drug dealer (Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson), a white rapist (Terry Serpico), a child killer (Frank John Hughes), a pedophile Catholic priest (Malachy McCourt) , a pimp, and a Russian wrestler (Oleg Taktarov) in cold-blood. The same killer leaves a poem on a card at each homicide. Talk about poetic justice! Homicide Detectives Thomas Cowan (Robert De Niro) and David Fisk (Al Pacino) have been partners for 30 years in the New York Police Department. An Internal Affairs investigator comments that Cowan & Fisk are closer than Lennon & McCartney. These two profane, sharp-shooting, tough-talking veterans have witnessed the seamy side of life and eventually it affects their mindset. Cowan and Fisk had to stand by helplessly while the courts cleared a child killer from a crime that he committed. A self-righteous Cowan plants evidence that convicts the child killer of another crime to put him behind bars. Cowan behaves like "Dirty Harry" and his partner Fisk describes him aptly as "a pit-bull on crack." Initially, Cowan and Fisk have no luck catching the serial killer and Detectives Simon Perez (John Leguizamo of "The Rock") and Ted Riley (Donnie Wahlberg of "Saw 2") join their investigation when one of their cases coincides with our heroes. Cowan and Perez hate each other because they have been bedding down a nymphomaniacal Crime Scene forensics expert, Karen Corelli (Carla Gugino of "American Gangster"), who loves rough sex. No matter what they do to solve the case, they cannot crack it, until Fisk suggests that the killer is a cop. Cowan suspects a disgruntled cop busted off the force has the motive. Meanwhile, the feud between Perez and Cowan fuels Perez's belief that Cowan is the murderer. Cowan admits he knew the priest and Lieutenant Hingis (a shrunken looking Brian Dennehy of "Silverado") puts him on a desk and allows the younger detectives to engineer a sting that will expose Cowan. Cowan's partner Fisk laughs in Hingis' face as well at Perez and Fisk.
Things begin to fall into place when one victim, the Russian, survives the killer's three bullets and the N.Y.P.D. guards his hospital room. The best mysteries give audiences the chance to figure them out. "Righteous Kill" deprives us crucial background material that would have made it far easier to fathom the killer's identity. Instead, Gewirtz and Avnet treat us to scenes where our heroes rarely get into any dangerous predicaments. Avnet stages a clumsy shoot out in an African-American nightspot, but every time somebody dies in "Righteous Kill" the crime is shown from the killer's perspective. Repeatedly, what you don't see and what you're not told about the protagonists keeps you in the dark. For example, we know De Niro and Pacino's characters only by their nicknames. The filmmakers refuse to establish the identities of either De Niro or Pacino from the start. The criminal investigation takes weird turns and red herrings—things designed to distract us—appear everywhere. Actually, the best clue to the killer's identity is broached early in the action, but you won't pay any attention to it because it seems to have little relevance.
Television series like CBS-TV's three "C.S.I." shows make this big-budget Hollywood whodunit look sophomoric. At one point, Lt. Hingis asks our heroes if they want to retire because they aren't making any headway. Neither Cowan nor Fisk are prepared to back down from this challenge, even if it means disaster for them. In that moment, De Niro and Pacino behave like 'Grumpy Old Cops' out to solve one last crime. Watching "Righteous Kill" will give you a bad case of the N.Y.P.D. Blues.
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