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 "LOOPER" (2012)

“Looper” (* out of ****) qualifies as a sordid science fiction thriller about time travel with an awful ending.  Stir a little H.G. Wells in with some Stephen King and add a pinch of “The Sopranos,” and you’ve got the basics of “Brick” director Rian Johnson’s contrived, unconvincing chronicle.  Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are cast as one in the same character in this disappointing actioneer that pits them against each other with a no-win outcome.  Furthermore, both protagonists emerge as more anti-heroic than heroic.  If you dismiss the fact these talented thespians bear scant resemblance to each other, you must still consider the scarcity of information about a distant future as well as a warped premise.  These shortcomings constitute the chief flaws in this imaginative but predictable sci-fi saga that unfolds in an erratic manner, lacks quotable dialogue, and features one character with no qualms about shooting innocent adolescents. By the time this uninspired, R-rated, 118-minute, spectacle has worn out its welcome; you have no reason to care about anybody, including an obnoxious telekinetic tyke who doesn’t know when to keep his trap shut.  Mind you, the future has never appeared more dystopian.  Some people are born with a mutation that enables them to levitate objects, and these fellows find that they can lure facile-minded babes into bed by making quarters float above the palms of their hands.  The economy has hit bottom, and vagrancy has become epidemic. Citizens can execute vagrants on the spot if they feel so inclined.  Any time Hollywood undertakes a time travel tale, the filmmakers conjure up some of the ugliest vehicles.  While the cars and trucks look hopelessly tacky, the motorcycles resemble something Luke Skywalker wouldn't ride.  Basically, you see a guy straddling a cylinder with handle bars.  Computer-generated special effects blur everything beneath his feet so he appears to be cruising on a cushion of air. 

Johnson’s screenplay is as amoral as his narrative premise is warped.  Imitating the best Mafia movies of director Martin Scorsese, Johnson relies on the voice-over narration of his lead character to acquaint us not only with his unusual profession but also with the seedy world where he thrives.  Kansas in the year 2044 serves as the setting.  Presumably, Johnson is making an ironic “Wizard of Oz” joke with his futuristic fable.  The premise of “Looper” is that a guy can live the high life by killing individuals from the future who have been sent back to the past.  Joseph Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt of “The Dark Knight Rises”) is a killer who was brought up the ranks by his boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels of “Blood Work”), to do his dirty work.  Actually, Abe was beamed back from the future to coordinate the equivalent of Murder Incorporated.  In the 1940s, the Mafia relied on hired gunmen from out of town to ice enemies on their own turf.  For example, if the New York Mafia wanted to dispose of an adversary, they contracted a Chicago gunsel to eliminate him.  The rationale was that the authorities always sought a motive.  What motive would a Chicago mobster have for killing New York mobster that he didn’t know?  This remained standard operating procedure until the authorities figured out the connection.  

Mobsters in the year 2074 cannot murder their adversaries because humans have become too easy to track.  Since the mob cannot kill their own, they contract hits out to mobsters from the past.  Gunman designated ‘loopers’ kill and dispose of these victims that the mob has beamed back so nobody can find them.  Our hero wields an exotic shotgun called a ‘blunderbuss,’ and the looper waits near a cornfield in the middle of nowhere with his weapon and a tarp spread on the ground.  Eventually, a bound man with a bag over his head and silver ingots strapped to his back materializes.  After he murders his prey, Joseph incinerates him so no traces remain. When a gangland assassin in the future has worn out his welcome, however, the mob sends him back to the past so he can kill himself.  They call this ‘closing the loop.’ After Young Joe botches the job of killing Old Joe, he has to dodge the bullets of his former associates—known as ‘gat-men’--until he can corner and kill himself. Losing one’s older self is referred to as ‘letting his loop run.’  Joe’s quick-witted alter-ego from the future (Bruce Willis of “Twelve Monkeys”) escapes and searches for a mysterious person code named the ‘Rainmaker.’  This enigmatic individual wants to eradicate any trace of the loopers.  Older Joe has been given a map with three possible addresses for this ‘Rainmaker.’  Joe wants to wreak vengeance on the ‘Rainmaker’ because the ladder dispatched trigger-happy gunmen who accidentally murdered his Asian wife. 

Instead of keeping things simple, Johnson complicates matters with a subplot about a kid with telekinetic powers.  Cid (Pierce Gagnon of “The Crazies”) lives on a sugar cane farm with his mom, Sara (Emily Blunt of “The Adjustment Bureau”), who runs the place by herself.  One of the locations that the Old Joe has is Sara’s farm.  He suspects Cid may be the reason that assassins are knocking themselves off.  Essentially, what we have here is a good assassin and a bad assassin who share the same body from drastically different decades.  Young Joe stakes out Sara’s farm so he can terminate Old Joe with extreme prejudice.  This uneven, poorly-plotted, high body count stinker doesn’t flow well and is often confusing, too.  Moreover, the logic is questionable.  Wouldn’t it be easier for the future mob to kill their enemies and send the remains back to the past for disposal?  Furthermore, what would happen if the victim that they sent back managed to escape like Old Joe and gum up the works?  As far as that goes, how does Abe know when a man is going to be sent back to the past. In most movies, you look for a character that you can either love or envy.  Nobody is lovable in “Looper” and parts of this movie are just plain downright dull.

FILM REVIEW OF "NAVAJO JOE" (ITALIAN-1966)

 This cynical Sergio Corbucci horse opera about the eponymous Native American hero exacting vengeance on a murderous gang of cutthroat renegades for murdering his woman and massacring his village qualifies as a stalwart, traditional Spaghetti western with nonstop riding, shooting, and killing galore.  Killing constitutes a virtual reflex action in this savage, above-average shoot'em up.  “Gunsmoke” actor Burt Reynolds must have been in the best shape of his life to pull off some of his stunts.  He leaps and he lunges as if he were a born acrobat. For example, trussed upside down by the evil villains, he gets a little help from a sneaky city slicker and crunches up to untie his ankles. Remember how Richard Gere did sit-ups dangling by his ankles from the ceiling of his apartment in "American Gigolo?" Burt performs similar stunts and is as nimble as a ninja.  Masquerading as Leo Nichols, "Fistful of Dollars" composer Ennio Morricone conjures up another memorable, atmospheric orchestral soundtrack with traditional Indian chanting, screaming, and steel string guitar thumping.  Quentin Tarantino thought so much of it and he sampled Morricone’s score in his two sword-wielding “Kill Bill” bloodbaths.  “Hercules, Samson, and Ulysses” lenser Silvano Ippoliti confines all the rampaging violence very skillfully with his widescreen compositions so everything looks aesthetically cool.  Some of Ippoliti’s more imaginative images occur when he hides the identity of one of the villains during a saloon conference scene.

"Navajo Joe" is one of a fistful of westerns where the only good Indian isn't a dead one. Few American westerns would celebrate the Native American as Corbucci does in "Navajo Joe." Joe is pretty doggoned smart for a savage. Veteran Spaghetti western villain Aldo Sambrell is as treacherous as they come. So filled with hate is he that he kills without a qualm. No sooner has Mervyn 'Vee' Duncan  (Aldo Sambrell of "For A Few Dollars More") shot, killed, and scalped Joe's Indian wife than Joe hits the trail in pursuit of Duncan and his gang. Gradually, Joe begins to whittle down the opposition. Meanwhile, Duncan discovers that the authorities in the town of Pyote where he once sold scalps have posted a bounty of both himself and his half-brother.  Just before Duncan’s blonde-headed brother Jeffrey (Lucio Rosato of “4 Dollars of Revenge’’) drills the sheriff with his six-shooter, the lawman informs an incredulous Duncan that he is wanted for murder.  Duncan points out that he has been bringing the sheriff the scalps of Indians for years. “The scalps you brought then were those of troublemakers,” the lawman points out.  According to the sheriff, things have changed. “Now, you’re attacking peaceful tribes, killing even the women and the children.” A prominent doctor convinces Duncan to rob a train heading for the town of Esperanza. He warns Duncan not to try and blow up the safe because an explosion will destroy the half-million dollars in the safe. He knows the combination and they can split the loot.  This part of the “Navajo Joe” screenplay by “Fistful of Dollars” scribe Fernando Di Leo, “Hills Run Red” writer Piero Regnoli, and “Mafia” scribe Ugo Pirro sounds somewhat like “For a Few Dollars More” when Colonel Mortimer persuades El Indio to let him open the safe because too much dynamite might destroy the loot.  Before Duncan leaves town, his gang and he set it ablaze.   

Predictably, Joe intervenes and steals the train from Duncan after the villainous dastard has massacred all the passengers, including a woman and her baby, along with the U.S. Army escort. Joe takes the train to Esperanza and offers to liquidate the gang if they will pay him a dollar for each head.  Eventually, Duncan captures Joe and tries to learn the whereabouts of the money, but Joe does not talk. Duncan ranks as one of the most heartless outlaws. He shoots a preacher point blank in the belly with his six-gun after the minister thanks him for not wiping out their town!  This trim 93-minute oater features a lean, mean Burt Reynolds wielding a Winchester like a demon and decimating the ranks of the bad guys. The Spanish scenery looks as untamed as the ruthless desperadoes that plunder one town after another.  “Django” director Sergio Corbucci never allows the action to slow down.  Despite its many sterling qualities, “Navajo Joe” never achieved the status of other Corbucci westerns like “The Mercenary,” “The Grand Silence” and “Companeros.” The no-frills MGM DVD presents the action in widescreen with several languages in subtitles.

FILM REVIEW OF ''REPO MEN" (2010)

No, “Dreamer” director Miguel Sapochnik’s violent, outlandish science fiction thriller “Repo Men,” co-starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, bears no relation to director Alex Cox’s cult hit “Repo Man” (1986), with Emilio Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton, about repossessing automobiles. Instead, “Repo Men” (** ½ out of ****) concerns the sales and manufacture of artificial body parts in the unspecified future and the ruthless ruffians dispatched to repossess these state-of-the-art organs from individuals who fail to maintain their payments. Although it features many suspenseful scenes, some appealing characters and charismatic performances, “Repo Men” looks more often than not like an uneven blend of “Brazil” and “Blade Runner” with an ending that leaves an unsavory taste in your mouth.

Derived from Eric Garcia's 2009 novel "The Repossession Mambo,” this slickly-produced dystopian chiller -vaguely similar to "Repo: The Genetic Opera"--boasts its share of twists and turns that will keep your hands clenched into white-knuckled fists until its one-too-many endings alienates you. Jude Law toplines an incomparable cast and you’ll find yourself cheering for him, even though he qualifies initially as a quasi-villain. Forest Whitaker and Liev Schreiber play unrepentant villains and they milk their roles for every ounce of villainy that they can muster. An opening metaphor about a cat trapped in a metal box filled with a deadly nerve gas will most certainly offend feline animal lovers, but the crowd that this Universal Pictures release is targeting will take pleasure in the adrenaline fueled action sequences and the high-tech equipment with which the principals deal. Hopelessly far-fetched in every detail, “Repo Men” has some elements that should undoubtedly absorb sci-fi fans. The aerosol foam that seals up gashes in the human body like fast-acting super-glue and the miraculous resiliency of the victims as they endure hands probing around inside them is pretty far-out stuff.

In the future, a billion-dollar corporation, the Union, fabricates high-tech artificial organs, nicknamed "artiforgs," so that nobody’s loved ones need endure the heartache and torment of biding their time awaiting genetically compatible body parts. The catch, however, is the sky-high cost of these miracle organs. In fact, few people can afford loan-shark interest rates imposed by the Union once they have signed a contract with the company. As a result of not being able to manage their credit cards anymore than their debts, these unfortunate souls wind up not only paying through the nose, but also often losing those pricey parts. When a recipient falls behind more than three months on their payments, the eponymous men materialize when they least expect them to gut and retrieve the Union’s property.

Remy (Jude Law of “Sherlock Holmes”) and Jake (Forest Whitaker of “Vantage Point”) are childhood pals, and the best repo men at the Union. They waste no time when they are on the job and show no more compassion that a repo man in the car business. Standard operating procedure dictates that our heroes provide the victim with the option to call an ambulance before they eviscerate them. Meantime, Remy’s wife Carol (Carice van Houten of “Valkyrie”) wants her husband to stop repossessing organs and move over into sales so he can allocate more time with their adolescent son, Peter (Chandler Canterbury of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”), who doesn’t see his dad as often as he’d like. Eventually, Carol puts her foot down and refuses to let Remy sleep with her, much get gain access to their comfortable house. As much as Remy wants to accommodate Carol, he loathes the idea of a buttoned down suit and tie existence on a 9-to-5 schedule.

Matters come to a head during one job when Remy visits a musician. As he is about to give the guy a jolt from a defibrillator to take his heart, the device malfunctions and knocks him unconscious. When Remy recovers, he finds himself in a hospital bed with Jake and local Union branch manager Frank (Liev Schreiber of “The Manchurian Candidate”) hovering over him with their smiling faces. The horror of what has occurred sinks in and Remy wants nothing to do with his new high-priced ticker. Nevertheless, Jake and Frank bring him around and Remy is back on his feet in no time and prepared to pick up where he left off repossessing organs. The problem is that Remy is no longer the same guy and he no longer has his heart in his job. In fact, he ends up in the same predicament that virtually every Union creditor finds themselves in and has to worry about Frank sending out Jake to repossess his heart.

“Repo Men” is a darkly-themed satire that never takes itself seriously, and Sapochnik stages several visceral action scenes involving blood, gore, and stabbing galore that may challenge your ability to keep from chucking up, when body parts are repossessed. Like the hero in Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil,” Remy winds up on the other side and helps out other organ recipients who have gone to the black market to save themselves. Like the heroes in a Sam Peckinpah western, our life-long friends—Remy and Jake--find themselves on opposite sides. Clearly, the producers couldn’t have picked a better time to release this sardonic nail-biter about high-tech medicine as Congress has passed a new health insurance bill. This compelling, sometimes convoluted, amoral thriller shows the two sides of humanity. Ironically, once it has eliminated the problem of obtaining human body parts, our capitalistic society has created a larger problem, footing the bill for manufactured variety. Organ donor epics will never be the same with the advent of “Repo Men.”