FILM REVIEW OF ''SURVIVOR" (2014)

"Ninja Assassin" director James McTeigue's "Survivor" (***1/2 OUT OF ****) qualifies as a tense, London-based, international-terrorist thriller about a wrongly accused American Foreign Service Officer sought for murdering a colleague, while a lethal assassin pursues her to finish his execution.  Milla Jovovich plays the heroine, but she isn't in full kick butt "Resident Evil" mode, wielding weapons and mixed martial arts. Instead, she is simply exemplary at her job, rides a motorcycle with style, speaks several languages, and knows how to stay one step ahead of her fleet-footed adversaries.  Nevertheless, while this makes her an efficient, no-nonsense protagonist, nothing about her character is terribly interesting. In a splendid example of casting against the grain, former 007 star Pierce Brosnan exudes menace as an evil assassin who refuses to quit. Brosnan's hit-man is nicknamed 'the Watchmaker,' and he is both smart and resourceful.  One of 'the Watchmaker's smartest efforts occurs when he takes a short-cut to catch up with our heroine as she scrambles down a staircase.  The Watchmaker spots a series of lights attached by a cable dangling in the stairway well.  Improbably, he leaps onto it and shoots out the lights as he slides down the cable.  Of course, he doesn't get her, but it is a really cool move of his part. This scene is reminiscent of Matt Damon in "The Bourne Identity" when he used a man's body to drop from several floors in a stairway well to reach the bottom.  A solid supporting cast, with James D'Arcy and Angela Bassett in minor roles, backs up Jovovich and Brosnan.  At the core of this outlandish but briskly-paced thriller is a terrorist's ambitious plan to use the New Year's Eve ceremonies in Times Square as the setting to detonate a bomb.  McTeigue maintains palatable tension throughout this above-average nail-biter despite a minor lapse in credibility that occurs about three-fourths of the way through his 96-minute, PG-13 melodrama.

Passport visa clearance is a hot issue at the American Embassy in London where Kate works, and she has the final say on who gets a passport.  Nonetheless, a fellow Embassy employee, Bill Talbot (Robert Forster of "Jackie Brown"), wants her to lighten up with regard to a physician, Emile Balan (Roger Rees of "The Prestige"), who wants to attend a conference in the U.S.  Warning signs come up that alert Kate Abbott (Milla Jovovich of "The Fifth Element") and she has second thoughts.  During the prologue, two American helicopter pilots are shot down over Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, and the villainous natives let one of the pilots live while they doused the other with gasoline and immolate him. Now, Bill Talbot is struggling to get Kate out of the picture, but the villains have his son, believed dead, in custody and are blackmailing him. Indeed, he is desperate enough that the villains hire a ruthless assassin, Nash (Pierce Brosnan of "Die Another Day") to blow up the Embassy staff, including Abbott, who is attending Bill's birthday party at a fashionable British restaurant. Ironically enough, the Embassy staff are going to be served pressed duck. Our heroine escapes by the skin of her teeth because nobody remembered to bring Bill's birthday present. She leaves the restaurant and enters a shop across the street about the same time that Nash triggers the bomb. Imagine Nash's surprise when he spots Abbott in the street looking battered and worse for the wear from the experience. He whips out an automatic pistol with a silencer attached to it and pursues her.

Naturally, since Kate is the protagonist and the protagonist must survive, Nash's accuracy with his weapon is compromised enough that she escapes.  Later, adhering to protocol, she encounters Bill at a rendezvous safe zone in a public park. Shocked at her presence, Bill pulls out an automatic pistol and tries to kill Kate. The two struggle over Bill’s weapon, and Bill winds up accidentally shooting himself in the stomach. Following all the classic tropes since "North by Northwest," Kate ends up with the pistol in her fist. Moreover, Bill staggers into public view, and sightseers snap photos and lens videos of the dumbstruck Kate several steps behind the mortally wounded Talbot with the pistol conspicuously held in her hand. Of course, she denies her guilt but then takes flight. Now, the video has gone viral, and Kate's superior, Sam Parker (Dylan McDermott of "In the Line of Fire"), is trying to reach her before British authorities with shoot-on-site orders can catch her. Indeed, the troubled U.S. Ambassador, Maureen Crane (Angela Bassett of “Waiting to Exhale”) contacts British security expert Paul Anderson (James D’Arcy) and grants him clearance to kill Abbott. The first half-hour goes by really rapidly despite its formulaic shenanigans, and McTeigue generates an air of urgency as Kate takes it on the lam and Nash resolves to liquidate her. Kate enjoys extraordinary luck eluding the authorities and Nash is the kind of assassin who likes to tie up as many loose ends as possible. Incredibly, she manages to impersonate a tourist and gets back to the United States in time to barely take down Nash. The finale atop a Big Apple skyscraper with Jovovich battling it out with Brosnan will have you on the edge of your seat holding your breath. Not only does "Survivor" live up to its generic title but it also is a terrific little thriller.

FILM REVIEW OF ''NO ESCAPE" (2015)

Occasionally, life imitates art, even in the cinema.  “As Above, So Below” director John Erick Dowdle’s “No Escape,” (*** OUT OF ****) qualifies as a spellbinding, ‘stranger-in-a-strange land’ saga about an amiable American family scrambling to stay alive during a cataclysmic coup in a nameless Southeast Asia nation.  Initially, when Dowdle took his cast and crew to Thailand back in 2013 to lens this gritty, straightforward, action-thriller, few knew the smoldering political unrest would flare up into a full-scale military insurrection later in 2014.  Moreover, the recent August 2015 bombing at a popular Hindu shrine that left 20 people dead and more than 100 wounded has heightened the plausibility of Dowdle’s nail-biting, take-no-prisoners thriller.  Originally, this Weinstein Company release was entitled “The Coup,” but audiences couldn’t relate to such as bland title so the producers changed it to something appropriately melodramatic.  Reportedly, when Dowdle made “No Escape,” he went to painstaking lengths not to specify Thailand as the film’s setting.  Additionally, the filmmakers refrained from using the color yellow in their palate because it represents Thailand’s official color and its royalty.  This white-knuckled but xenophobic exercise in suspense dispenses with comic relief, clever one-liners, and amounts to a cautionary tale for tourists contemplating a vacation in Thailand. Indeed, China, Australia, and Hong Kong officials have issued travel warnings to tourists about Thailand. In Dowdle’s R-rated epic, murderous mobs armed with sticks, stones, machetes, knives, revolvers, and assault rifles declare an ‘open season’ on tourists and those who accommodate these foreigners.  Ostensibly, “No Escape” has been lambasted by many film critics because it depicts the rebel natives in a demonic light but portrays tourists, particularly Americans, as if they were saints.  “Empire” magazine critic Simon Crook has even gone so far as to compare “No Escape” to a zombie movie and Americans as the endangered species!

Austin, Texas, engineer Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson of “Behind Enemy Lines”) represents a benevolent American company dispatched to an unknown Asian country to improve the quality of the water supply.  Events beyond Jack’s control have forced him to take this dreadful job as a last resort because his other enterprises haven’t worked out for him. Predictably, Jack refuses to fly off to this exotic, faraway, fourth-world, paradise without packing along his family, wife Annie (Lake Bell of “Pride and Glory”), and their two daughters.  Imagine a Brady Bunch with only two children finding themselves swamped in a blood and gore revolution with bloodthirsty natives dying to kill them, and you’ve got the gist of “No Escape.”  Dowdle and his brother Drew who helped him script “Quarantine” spend the first ten minutes or so of “No Escape” introducing us to Dwyer and his happy family.  Adorable daughters Lucy (Sterling Jerins) and Beeze (Claire Geare) are elementary school aged moppets who are no more prepared than their parents for the perilous predicaments that await them. What the Dwyers don’t know is that the country’s current President has just been terminated with extreme prejudice by ruthless terrorists.  You know things are bad when the President’s personal bodyguard takes one look at what has happened and slashes his own throat. 

Meantime, the Dwyers have checked into the motel, and Jack has gone downstairs to report that nothing seems to work in his room when he spots a fellow passenger from his plane performing karaoke.  Hammond (Pierce Brosnan of “GoldenEye”) is a grizzled, alcohol-imbibing Briton who knows the country like the handle of the automatic pistol that he conceals on his person.  Hammond and his native grinning pal Kenny (Sahajak Boonthanakit of “Elephant White”), who owns a taxi plastered with posters of country music crooner Kenny Rogers, help the Dwyers commute from the airport to their motel without being taken advantage of by the locals. Jack leaves the motel to buy a USA Today newspaper and finds himself caught between rioters wielding bombs, baseball bats, and guns and the police armed with helmets and shields.  Jack knows that his goose is cooked when the rioters scatter the police and start executing Americans as well as any locals who appear to be collaborating with the American devils.

The first obstacle the Jack and Annie face is getting out of their motel room without being slaughtered.  They join other nervous tourists barricaded atop the motel roof. Initially, an approaching helicopter allays their anxieties.  Ironically, the chopper carries rebels equipped with machine guns who aren’t about to rescue anybody. Jack realizes their only alternative is to jump to nearby high-rise building.  If you’ve seen the “No Escape” trailer, you’ll be prepared for this ordeal as the Dwyers hurl their horrified kids into the sky toward the other building. These taut moments will grip you with chilling terror, and things escalate for the worse as they flee for freedom.  One crucial scene shows the entire family astride on a motorcycle that the father pushes through waves of irate rebels, but only one rebel spots their Nike sneakers.  Later, when Jack barters for a boat so they can cross into Vietnam, he has to surrender his Nikes.

“No Escape” reminded me of a long dormant film genre that flourished during the Cold War in the 1960s. In a game of political dominoes with the Communists, imperialist Americans sought to convert Southeast Asia countries to capitalism.  Specifically, the Marlon Brando diplomatic thriller “The Ugly American” (1963), concerned Uncle Sam’s meddling in local politics where those empire-building antics were not appreciated. Meantime, “No Escape” conjures up a harrowing portrait of heroism under fire.  The imperiled American family emerges as whitewashed saints, while virtually all of dark-skinned Asians are hopelessly maniacal miscreants.  Mind you, it is difficult not to root for Wilson and his family, especially when former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan sacrifices his life to rescue them from their homicidal Asian adversaries.  Although Owen Wilson is best known for his smarmy comedies, he sheds his light-hearted image here. During one scene, when Jack’s own daughter is forced to hold him at gunpoint, director John Erick Dowdle doesn’t let the suspense slacken for a second. This scene is just as intense as the Russian roulette scenes in “The Deer Hunter.”  “No Escape” will keep you poised on the edge of your seat, even when you know you’re being shamelessly manipulated for the sake of thrills and chills.

REVIEW OF ''SHATTERED'' aka "Butterfly on a Wheel" (2007)

Some movies are easy to criticize in a review, pointing out the positive and the negative while applauding or panning those involved. Other movies, like the Pierce Brosnan & Gerald Butler melodrama “Shattered” (**** out of ****) [a.k.a. “Butterfly on a Wheel”] pose difficulties because you cannot plunge into details without divulging crucial plot points that would ruin the film's mystery and suspense for folks who want to see it. I thoroughly enjoyed “Shattered,” but my closest and dearest friends absolutely detested it from start to finish. Evidently, the film did not fare well at the box office because it didn’t play in the sticks where I live, Columbus, Mississippi, and it didn’t last long in theaters. Since I don't subscribe to the crappy cable where I lived, little did I know that it premiered on TNT. I envy those audiences that did see it in theaters. Again, I had a blast watching this tense, white-knuckled suspense thriller.

The first time that I saw Mike Barker's "Shattered," I watched it with the commentary track playing because I had bought it used at a Movie Gallery sale and I wanted to have some idea about what was happening in case the DVD skipped and I had to wait any length of time before I could replace it. I’ve never had a problem watching a movie that I learn stuff about as I am watching it. In fact, the second time that I watched "Shattered," I appreciated it the way some people savor good food. Now, the married couple that saw "Shattered" took an immediate dislike to it and the surprise ending didn't leaving them gasping, and they generally didn’t like anything about it, especially Maria Bello.

Pierce Brosnan, the former James Bond on the big-screen and Remington Steele on the small screen, has been monkeying around with his cinematic persona since the Bond producers sent him packing after "Die Another Day." He let his belly hang out in “After the Sunset,” admittedly a routine caper film, and most recently, he sang in “Mama Mia.” Between these epics, Brosnan played the villain in “Shattered” and he is convincing without going overboard as a psychotic lunatic.

An unshaven renegade with a grudge, Tom Ryan (Pierce Brosnan) forces his way into the lives of successful Chicago advertising executive Neil Randal (Gerald Butler of “300”) and his pretty blond wife Abby (Maria Bello of “Payback”) as Neil is taking Abby off to a girls’ night out rendezvous before he leaves on a jet for a trip with his boss. No sooner have our happily married couple hit the road than Tom pops up out of the backseat and holds them at gunpoint. Not surprisingly, Neil and Abby react with shock and their shock intensifies when Tom explains that the babysitter is part of his grand kidnapping scheme. Tom assures the Randalls that with his cell phone he can order his accomplice to kill their adorable little girl Sophie if they refuse to follow his orders.

Now, if you’re the kind of person that likes to pick holes in plots before the film has even reached its climax, you will HATE “Shattered.” My friends were bombarding me with questions and trying to guess the outcome. The wife had figured part of it out, but there was a red herring that threw them off the scent for a while. Anyway, Tom has been watching Neil so we know that he knows something and the something that Tom knows is the exact amount of Neil’s bank account, over $142-thousand dollars. At this point, we know that Neil is an egotistical sort of guy and that he has a knack for landing big accounts at his advertising agency. The Randalls have a luxurious house in the Chicago suburbs and Abby is a photographer. She appears to be happy with her husband because the sky seems to be the limit for Neil. Neil has a lot of tenacity and he isn’t afraid to admit it. He is a tiger at what he does, until he runs into Tom. At the bank, Neil and Abby withdraw everything and hand it over in an attaché case to Tom. Tom wastes no time. He pulls out a sheaf of bills and sets fire to it and then he drops the burning currency into the attaché case and tosses it lock, stock, and barrel off a bridge in Chicago.

Indeed, “Shattered” is for all practical purposes a kidnap thriller and initially I was intrigued but grew impatient with it. However, the more that I watched it, the more entertaining it became. Nobody gave a bad performance and I loved the surprise ending. Unfortunately, I don’t want to say anything else, except I feel that “Shattered” qualifies as an excellent, edge-of-your seat movie and happily most of the people who wrote about it at Amazon shared my sentiments. The filmmakers took the original title "Butterfly on a Wheel" from an Alexander Pope poem that basically translates as smashing a butterfly with a hammer with a fly swatter would serve the same purpose. Once you see the film, you'll understand the title. I love watching Maria Bello in any film and I wish that her career were more prestigious than it is because she is a talented lady. Altogether, my review doesn’t do justice to this spine-tingling, nail-biter that ripples with one surprise after another surprise.

“Shattered” is in the same league with the fantastic David Fincher thriller “The Game with Michael Douglas and Mikael Håfström’s “Derailed” with Clive Owen. Although "Shattered" carries an R-rating, there is no nudity, little bloodshed, but several tense moments and Ashley Rowe's scintillating widescreen photography at times may induce vertigo.