FILM REVIEW OF ''KID RODELO" (U.S.-SPANISH 1966)

"Four Guns to the Border" director Richard Carlson helmed this thoroughly lackluster Louis L'Amour western "Kid Rodelo,"(** OUT OF ****) with Don Murray, Janet Leigh, and Oscar-winner Broderick Crawford.  This straightforward, humorless, horse opera concerns survival of the fittest on the frontier. Appropriately enough, lean, handsome Murray is cast as the virtuous hero, while paunchy, gravel-voiced Crawford excels a treacherous outlaw with an itchy trigger finger. Eventually, these two wind up on a rugged desert trail transporting $50-thousand in gold with remorseless Yaqui Indians shadowing them like vultures. The prison hires Yaquis to bring back escaped prisoners, and the Yaquis usually bring them back face down and draped across the saddles of their horses. Unlike the Rangers, the Yaquis need not bother with the same pesky jurisdictional issues that the Rangers must contend with when crossing the border into Mexico.  These Yaquis are particularly proficient at what they do, and their leader, Cavalry Hat (José Villasante of “Django the Condemned”), covets the hero's boots.  The only thing that distinguishes this western is the eponymous hero’s knowledge of desert plants, specifically cholla cactus with their poisonous spines which can lame a horse.

Kid Rodelo (Don Murray of "From Hell to Texas") has been released after serving a year inside Yuma Territorial Prison, while villainous Joe Harbin (Broderick Crawford of "All the King's Men") sweats out a life sentence because he shot his partner. Meantime, Harbin's accomplice, Thomas Reese (José Nieto of "Dr. Zhivago"), hatches a plan to break out of Yuma. He has stolen two wooden matches from the kitchen. Harbin and he toil in the stone quarry where they hammer holes into the rocks with a drill to insert dynamite to blast the formation. They plant some extra sticks of dynamite and all hell cuts loose. In the novel, Joe's accomplice is named Tom Badger and he survives until the finale, whereas Reese dies not long after they break out of prison. Anyway, Harbin and Reese take the Warden (Emilio Rodríguez) as a hostage to make good their escape. They shoot their way out of Yuma using the Warden as a shield and dump him once they have gotten away.

Now, they light out in hot pursuit of the Kid who has caught a ride with another some other suspicious characters who are conveniently watching for him to show up.  Link (Richard Carlson of "Creature from the Black Lagoon") and his girlfriend Nora (Janet Leigh of "Psycho") are waiting for the Kid as he trudges on foot along the trail from the prison.  Link wants the money, too, and he has hired another gunslinger, sleazy Balas (Julio Peña), to help him.  After they reach a largely abandoned town, Link and Balas enter a house and find a box concealed beneath the wooden floorboards.  They get into an argument over Balas' percentage of the loot.  The greedy Balas insists on a greater share and guns down Link without a qualm.  Later, Balas joins Joe after he guns down Reese, but they don’t trust each other.  Gopher (Alfonso Sanfélix) dies later after they have crossed the border.  Balas takes the gold piece that Joe gave Gopher after he made him a partner.  Balas suggests that they flip for the coin, and Joe grabs the coin before it hits the ground and appropriates it as his coin.  Eventually, Cavalry Hat picks off Joe as he is about to gun down Rodelo.

This threadbare oater was lensed on location in rugged Spain.  Strangely enough, the pinch-penny producers filmed this outdoors yarn in black & white.  This Paramount Pictures release seems unusual because most westerns by that time were photographed in color, even those old timer oaters that producer A.C. Lyles made.  "Badman's Territory" scenarist Jack Natteford departs drastically from the source material in at least one crucial respect, and this change might upset hardcore, morally rigidly, L’Amour fans.  For example, Link is named Jake, and Balas is named Clint.  Nevertheless, this is nothing compared with the outcome of the action and the disposal of the gold.  The characters amount largely to stereotypes as they did in the novel.  Like most L'Amour heroes, Kid Rodelo knows his way around the desert like an expert, particularly the whereabouts of water holes.  Carlson and Natteford exploit Rodelo’s environmental familiarity, such as knowing about the flora and fauna to keep them alive.  The performances are okay, while Leigh appears as little more than window dressing.  She does do one important thing at the end. This gritty western tries to imitate the Spaghetti westerns, but Carlson imparts little color or charisma.  The villains are cutthroat dastards, willing to kill anybody to keep from sharing the loot.  The simple Johnny Douglas orchestral score represents an exercise in minimalism.  The finale on the shore of the Gulf of Baja differs from most westerns because you don’t often see the action end on a beach.  Altogether, as a film, “Kid Rodelo” doesn’t surpass the L’Amour novel despite the scenic splendor of the Spanish landscape and the obvious amoral Spaghetti western influence on the ending.  The chief difference between the novel and the film is Rodelo planned to return the gold to the authorities to clear his name for his supposed part in the robbery.  In the novel, he was arrested because he was caught riding with Joe, but Rodelo didn’t know anything about the robbery. The film concludes with Rodelo and Nora bathing in the surf then walking off as permanent partners.

FILM REVIEW OF "JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT" (2014)

Chris Pine follows in the footsteps of Ben Affleck, Harrison Ford, and Alec Baldwin as the fourth actor to breathe life into Tom Clancy’s best-selling, literary hero Jack Ryan.  Happily, Pine handles himself well both in the action scenes as well as the dialogue interludes.  Sadly, neither freshman scribe Adam Cozad nor seasoned “Jurassic Park” scenarist David Koepp provide Pine with anything quotable.  Meanwhile, Pine’s chief adversary, played by Shakespearean trained thespian Kenneth Branagh, lacks not only memorable lines but also intimidating scenes.  Branagh’s best bad guy scene shows him sticking a white LED light bulb into the leading lady’s mouth.  Dreadful consequences, he warns our emaciated heroine, will ensue if he shatters the bulb in her mouth.  Meantime, as director, Branagh regales us with beautiful scenery both urban and rural, inevitable automotive chases continents apart, immaculate shoot-outs between Russian and CIA gunmen, and our hero in close-quarters combat with adversaries.  Branagh doesn’t orchestrate these activities with his usual finesse.  Essentially, the $60-million dollar “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” (** OUT OF ****) qualifies as a derivative espionage thriller with most of the clichés intact.   One of the worst clichés involves slender Keira Knightley posing as a helpless damsel-in-distress.  You know from the moment that you see her that she is going to be the tennis ball heroine who gets swatted back and forth between the hero and the villains.  The wicked Branagh plots an appropriately horrific 9/11 attack on Manhattan that will set off another devastating global economic depression.  Branagh’s millionaire Russian villain hopes this geopolitical strategy will destroy America.  Comparatively, Batman’s arch foe Bane pulled a similar stunt in “The Dark Knight Rises.”  If it succeeds in doing nothing else, “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” resurrects the long dormant enmity between the Russians with a retro-Cold War agenda and the United States.
 

For the record, “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” doesn’t pick up the narrative thread where either “Clear and Present Danger” (1994) or “The Sum of All Fears” (2002) faded out.  “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriotic Games,” and “Clear and Present Danger” constituted the first series of Jack Ryan’s cinematic escapades.  Incidentally, Paramount tampered with Clancy’s literary chronology because the novel “Patriotic Games” preceded “The Hunt for Red October.”  Meanwhile, “The Sum of All Fears” (2002) amounted to a franchise reboot with Ben Affleck.  Director Kenneth Branagh’s spy saga has no connection to the previous four films.  Moreover, the filmmakers didn’t adapt a Tom Clancy novel to serve as the basis for “Jack Ryan.”  The bestselling author passed away in October 2013.  Reportedly, Paramount Pictures hired Adam Cozad to rewrite his own screenplay "Dubai" and convert the hero into Jack Ryan.  Branagh and scenarists David Koepp and Cozad have retained our hero’s financial background and his terrifying helicopter accident.  Since this is another ‘origins’ reboot, Paramount has altered the dates.  Indeed, renegade Russians are behaving like their Communistic ancestors before the empire collapsed in 1989.  You might go so far as to describe this movie as a retro-Cold War saga pitting Uncle Sam against the Russian Bear.  

The first time we see our protagonist Jack Ryan (Chris Pine of “Star Trek”) he is catching forty winks on a bench.  Ryan has enrolled as a student at the London School of Economics.  As he is ambling back to class, Jack notices a commotion around a television set.  The year is 2001, and the unbelievable has happened to the World Trade Center.  Stunned by this tragic turn of events, Ryan joins the Marine Corps and becomes a jarhead lieutenant.  Narrowly, he escapes death when enemy mortar fire brings down the helicopter that he is riding in over Afghanistan.  Badly smashed up from the attack, Jack struggles to walk again.  A pretty physical therapist, Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley of “Domino”), enters Jack’s life and motivates him to keep on trying.  Jack and Cathy know they are made for each other, but their jobs create tension and suspicion.  CIA Agent Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner of “No Way Out”) recruits Ryan after our protagonist proves he can walk again.  Harper sends Jack back to school for a Ph.D. in Economics.  Harper never takes his eye off Ryan.

A decade later, Harper plants Ryan as an agency mole on Wall Street to ferret out possible terrorist activities in the financial community.  Suspecting that Soviet Afghan war veteran Viktor Cheverin (Kenneth Branagh of “Hamlet”) has been manipulating finances with evil designs, Jack flies to Russia to confront him.  Jack’s life changes irrevocably after he lands in Moscow.  Harper watches over Ryan like a guardian angel from the shadows.  A first-rate sniper, Harper has no qualms about shooting anybody who interferes with Ryan.  After their initial meeting, Viktor invites Jack to dinner at a restaurant across the street from his headquarters.  At the last minute, Jack’s fiancée Cathy surprises them both with her presence.  Cathy fascinates Viktor so much so that he forgets about Ryan.  While Viktor flirts with Cathy, Ryan burglarizes Viktor’s computers to get the goods on him.  Of course, the Russians get wise to Ryan, but he escapes without incriminating himself.

The best thing about “Jack Ryan” is that Branagh maintains headlong momentum despite all of the predictable, standard-issue, melodramatics.  Unhappily, most of what occurs here has been done before with greater flair by the James Bond spectacles and the Jason Bourne thrillers.  The final scenes in New York City generate a modicum of suspense as our hero tangles with a committed terrorist who wants to blow Wall Street to smithereens.  Again, we’ve seen this kind of hair-raising nonsense too often for it shake us up.  Kevin Costner seems squandered in a co-starring role as an agency spook who recruits Jack.  Vic Armstrong and his colleagues perform several tough stunts, but “Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit” suffers from an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.  This is probably the least entertaining Jack Ryan outing.

FILM REVIEW OF ''A View to a Kill" (1985)

The fourteenth James Bond extravaganza “A View to a Kill” pitted 007 (Roger Moore) against the franchise’s most psychotic villain, ‘staunch, anti-Communist,’ French industrialist Max Zorin (Oscar winner Christopher Walken of “The Deer Hunter”), who schemes to corner the micro-chip market by destroying Silicon Valley. Essentially, this Bond movie recalled “Goldfinger” because Zorin resembled Goldfinger with his immense wealth and his audacious plan to wipe out Silicon Valley the way that Goldfinger sought to take over the gold market by turning America’s supply of gold at Fort Knox in a radioactive rubble.

Indeed, as villains go, Zorin ranks as one of the more memorable with an interesting back story. An ethically challenged Nazi scientist, Dr. Carl Mortner (Willoughby Gray of “Waterloo”), carried out steroid testing on pregnant women and most of the offspring died. One of them, Zorin, survived to become a genius but a psychotic. Zorin and the good doctor who had been captured by the Soviets after World War II later employed his knowledge of steroids to help Soviet athletes. If that isn’t a casual slap in the face of Communists, what is? Mind you, the Bond movies neither demonized the Soviets, nor did they romanticize the Russkies. The Soviets made mistakes, but they always managed to clean up after themselves. In the previous Bond adventure, “Octopussy,” the Soviets caught up with a renegade black market General Orlov (Steven Berkoff of “Beverly Hills Cop”) who tried to ignite a nuclear war and frame the Americans. In “A View to a Kill,” the Soviet catch up with Zorin who had been in cahoots with them in the microchip manufacturer business but the two fell out. Indeed, like all the Roger Moore Bond’s after “Live and Let Die,” “A View to a Kill” takes place with in the context of the Cold War. Furthermore, while tensions exist between East and West, there is also an air of détente that characterize these Bonds.

Although it proved to be Roger Moore’s last mission as James Bond and it didn’t surpass the box office receipt of “Octopussy,” “A View to a Kill” contains more than enough virtues, such as the snow pursuit in Siberia, Bond’s careening car chase through Paris, and Zorin’s sadistic massacre of his own men in a secluded mine in California. Original 007 composer John Barry provides a strong, atmospheric orchestral soundtrack and the Duran Duran title tune is a knock-out! The Richard Maibaum & Michael G. Wilson screenplay contains a some imaginative twists on the Bond formula, especially with regard to the sacrificial girl convention. Essentially, the sacrificial girl in most Bonds is either an agent working with Bond as in “Thunderball” or the villain’s girl as in “The Man with the Golden Gun.” Oh, yes, let’s not forget Plenty O’Toole who stumbles into bad girl Tiffany Case’s house and dies because the villains catch her. The difference with “A View to a Kill” is that Mayday (Grace Jones) is not only Zorin’s main squeeze but also a villainess herself. She has to die, but her death is heroic. Alan Hume’s cinematography is good and John Glen never lets the pace flag in his third outing as a Bond helmer.

Director John Glen stages several interesting sequences. The fistfights lack pugnacity, primarily those at Zorin’s laboratories and in Stacy Sutton’s home, but Zorin’s plan for Operation: Mainstrike against Silicon Valley takes place in a zeppelin, but we don’t know that until one of Zorin’s associates literally takes a walk into thin air for refuses to participate in his Silicon Valley scheme. The scene opens in a conference room as Zorin explains how Mainstrike will work and we don’t know until the last second that they are hundreds of feet in the air. The fire truck chase with the SFPD in pursuit is reminiscent of “Diamonds Are Forever” and “Live and Let Die.” There’s a robust disaster sequence when Zorin kills a San Francisco City Hall official and traps Stacy and Bond in an elevator while setting the building ablaze. Stacy Sutton (Tanya Roberts of TV’s “Charlie’s Angels”) qualifies as the most annoyingly hysterical heroine of the franchise. She screams convincingly throughout the blazing city hall predicament. As seemingly lightweight as “A View to a Kill” is you cannot overlook Sir Godfrey Tibbett’s murder by Mayday and Zorin’s decision to plunge a KGB agent into a shaft with a whirling propeller at the other end. Actually, we see him thrown into the shaft by Zorin’s men and he dies in a gush of water. Occasionally, Bonds contain gruesome death scenes that—owing to their PG-ratings—are left to the imagination of the spectator. Of course, it isn’t as grisly as the snow plow scene in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” but violence does creep into every Bond.

The scenes are Zorin’s equine stables and the eccentric Frenchman’s chateau is scenic. The idea that Zorin and his doctor pal are tampering with horse racings is no doubt inspired by the characteristically decadent Ian Fleming villain who cannot help but cheat, even when he has more money that most people. Christopher Walken with his blond hair is ideally cast as the devious Zorin. Unfortunately, to be as nefarious as Zorin is, he lets 007 off the hook too easily. Bond’s escape from the sinking car is slick but far from believable and the shift from the lake to San Francisco is the film’s weakest link. Furthermore, Patrick Macnee’s demise is glossed over too much. Patrick Bauchau plays Zorin’s right-hand man and actress Alison Doody is one of his girls. Robert Brown plays M and Lois Maxwell plays Ms. Moneypenny for the last time. Desmond Llewelyn shows up again as Q and gets to lecture 007about the usefulness of the microchip at the outset of the action in M’s office. Geoffrey Keen is on hand as Defense Minister Freddie Gray. Bond regular Walter Gotell reprises his role as the sympathetic KGB chief, while future B-movie action star Dolph Lundgren has a moment as a KGB henchman at a race track when the Soviets upbraid Zorin. This is one of many Bonds with a pre-credit sequence that is actually a part of the remaining plot. “A View to a Kill” isn’t as bad as some might argue. It tops “Live and Let Die” and “The Man with the Golden Gun,” but it isn’t as great as “The Spy Who Loved Me.” Naturally, "A View to a Kill" has nothing to do with Ian Fleming's short story.