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 "THE MYSTERIOUS MR. WONG" (1934)

The 1935 Monogram Pictures' release "The Mysterious Mr. Wong," starring Bela Lugosi and Wallace Ford, clearly deserved no Oscars.  Similarly, director William Nigh's poverty-row crime thriller doesn’t qualify as ghastly. This low-budget, black & white, whodunit about a series of murders occurring in the Chinatown section of an anonymous metropolitan American city is incorrigibly xenophobic. Remember, when "The Mysterious Mr. Wong” (**1/2 OUT OF ****) came out, Americans harbored paranoid fears about the so-called 'Yellow Peril' that Chinese immigrants represented as they poured into the West coast. Any multi-culturally minded liberals who partake of "The Mysterious Mr. Wong" are going to be not only appalled but also offended the conspicuous, racially charged invective in this crime thriller. Clocking in at a meager 68 minutes, this melodrama never wears out its welcome. Prolific director William Nigh, who helmed 120 movies in a career spanning thirty-four years, and his writers keep things clicking. “Dangerous Crossroads” scribe Lew Levenson adapted author Harry Stephen Keeler's story "The Twelve Coins of Confucius," and Nina Howatt penned the screenplay, with James Herbuveaux contributing additional dialogue. Neither Howatt nor Herbuveaux wrote anything after "The Mysterious Mr. Wong," but the dialogue sounds pretty snappy, slang-riddled, but eminently quotable. The action itself resembles a twelve chapter serial pared down to the bare essentials. Secret passageways, concealed doors, underground sanctums, exotic coins, and torture chambers pervade this yarn.

"The Mysterious Mr. Wong" opens with expository information from an encyclopedia about the fabled twelve coins of Confucius and how the person who possesses them will rule a province called Keelat. Afterwards, newspaper story about a murder appears. Indeed, newspaper accounts of homicides in Chinatown recur throughout the narrative. Three slayings occur in rapid succession during the first few minutes. The police believe that the Tongs are on the warpath. The first victim staggers out into a street and collapses. A man searches his body, finds a perforated coin, and plants a note with a Chinese letter on the corpse. The second victim has been hanged, and hands rifle his pockets to acquire a coin. The third man is strangled as he sleeps—yes, he is strangled perhaps too quickly, but the Production Code censors might have forced Nigh to accelerate this lurid death scene—and hands plunder his warm corpse, extract the coin from a shoe, and leave the usual note on his body. Meanwhile, agents of the Keelat province show up in town to thwart Mr. Wong. Phillip Tsang (E. Alyn Warren of "Chinatown Squad") heads up the operation. Eventually, Tsang crosses paths with Mr. Wong, and Wong takes him hostage.

A cynical newspaper reporter, Jason Barton (Wallace Ford of "Freaks"), investigates these murders. The authorities are convinced that the Tongs are responsible. Barton disagrees in a news story, and his editor Steve Brandon (Lee Shumway of "The Lone Star Ranger"), packs him off to find a Chinaman named Wong. "Did you ever run into a Chinaman by the name of Wong?" Brandon inquires. "Have I ever run into any that ain't named Wong?" Barton retorts. Our journalistic hero ventures into Sam Toy's Laundry where he encounters an Irish cop, Officer 'Mac' McGillicuddy (Robert Emmett 0'Conner of "Picture Snatcher"), who seems to be the only policeman walking a beat in the district. He shares Barton's racism and refers to the Chinese as "monkeys." None of the other reporters are interested in the murder. Barton checks over the body and learns that Toy died with a pencil in his hand. A breeze blows through the laundry when Mac opens the door and Barton finds a message written in Chinese. He visits the herb shop of Mr. Lysee (Bela Lugosi), but Lysee plays dumb when Barton quizzes him. Barton visits a nearby university where Professor Chan Fu (Luke Chan) works as a translator. Lysee sends one of his minions to steal the note from Barton, but Barton eludes him.

Later, Barton ransacks Toy's laundry and finds the last coin, but an assailant gets the drop on Barton and steals the last coin. When Barton recovers, he learns another Chinaman has died. "Say, this is getting monotonous," Barton complains, "I'm supposed to bring in real live news, the best I can do is run down dead Chinamen." Later, Barton and the newspaper switchboard operator, Peg (Arlene Judge of "Flying Devils"), have dinner in a restaurant and Barton discovers that the man who stole the coin from him is trying to return it. This man dies in the booth next to Barton and Peg. Afterward, Mr. Wong's murderous minions capture Barton and Peg. Eventually, Wong takes them to his underground torture chamber where he plans to stick bamboo shafts up Peg's finger nails unless the reticent Barton surrenders the last coin.

Just before the torture commences, Wong and company leave our hero and heroine alone long enough for Barton to find a convenient telephone and call his boss. "I'm somewhere back of old Lysee's herb shop. It's a matter of life and death. There's a secret panel on the back of the counter. You better come well heeled. These babies don't play with marbles." Nigh was no stranger to directing movies about Asians with white actors impersonated Orientals. He directed all five Boris Karloff mysteries in the "Mr. Wong" franchise: "Mr. Wong, Detective," "The Mystery of Mr. Wong," "Mr. Wong in Chinatown," "The Fatal Hour," and "Doomed to Die." Later, Nigh directed Lugosi again in "Black Dragons" during 1942.

Of course, "Dracula" star Bela Lugosi was atrociously miscast as Mr. Wong with his obvious Hungarian accent. More than likely, Monogram cast Lugosi because Universal had cast Bela's biggest rival Boris Karloff in their 1932 epic "The Mask of Fu Manchu." Nevertheless, Bela delivers his lines with reasonable credibility and doesn't bump into the furniture. He looks pretty sinister as an Asian villain and he is up to his ears in intrigue and murder. "The Mysterious Mr. Wong" wallows in racial prejudice that was part and parcel of its time. Nevertheless, it still ranks as an entertaining B-movie.

FILM REVIEW OF ''GET THE GRINGO" (2012)

Mel Gibson is back in top form as a gimlet-eyed career criminal in freshman director Adrian Grunberg's "Get the Gringo," (*** OUT OF ****) a gritty, gory, hard-boiled crime thriller set inside a corrupt Mexican prison, like Tijuana's El Pueblito, where anything goes. Good movies don't dawdle, and rarely does this bullet-riddled, shoot'em up about life behind bars telegraph its next move. Any prison where an inmate's family can move in with him while he serves time is pretty unusual. This prison resembles something out of a trigger-happy Robert Rodriguez actioneer. Men come and go with loaded weapons in plain sight. You can even shell out bucks for a shot of heroin administered by needle in a grungy shop. Everything in this replica of Tijuana's El Pueblito has a price. As an anonymous convict, Gibson provides the kind of voice-over we usually hear in a loquacious Martin Scorsese film. Gibson's sarcastic commentary about El Pueblito with its unusual routines and procedures highlights the surreal nature of the squalid setting. Nobody delivers a bad performance, and Hollywood regulars like Bob Gunton, Patrick Bauchau, and Peter Stormare flesh out the film with familiar faces.

You never really know for certain where things are going in this violent, amoral, tongue-in-cheek, 95-minute melodrama."Get the Gringo" opens with Driver (Mel Gibson of “Payback”) and his wounded partner in clown outfits careening down the highway with cops in close pursuit. Desperately, Driver plows his car through the border fence, and the Mexican police arrest him. The Texas police try to persuade their Mexican counterparts to remand him into their custody. Instead, one glance at two duffel bags bulging with a million dollars prompts the Mexicans to keep him on their side of the border. Once Driver lands in the big house, he gets chummy with a 10-year-old kid (Kevin Hernandez of "The Sitter") who is plotting to exact revenge on another criminal, Javi (Daniel Gimenez Cacho of "Cronos"), who killed his father. The 10-year old's mother and father were incarcerated for selling narcotics. Initially, Driver uses cigarettes to bribe the youngster into silence. You see, the youngster saw Driver rob a fat, slimy heroin dealer after he set a fire to create a distraction. Afterward, Driver decides to use the youth as his eyes and ears inside the prison. Interestingly, "Get the Gringo" could be compared to the silent Charles Chaplin comedy "The Kid" because an adult sets out to help a less fortunate child. Primarily, the filmmakers use the child to make Driver appear more sympathetic. Gradually, Driver learns the ropes and uses them to get ahead of the opposition. 

Before long Driver's nemesis Frank (Peter Stormare of "The Million Dollar Hotel") dispatches professional killers to ferret out the millions that Driver stole from him. They track down the crooked cops who arrested Driver and start cutting off toes to recover the purloined millions. Meantime, Driver struggles inside the prison to gain Javi's confidence and engineer a deal so he can get out, go back to America, and kill Frank. Driver has no respect for anybody but himself, and he abhors Javi with a passion. It seems that the bathrobe-clad prison kingpin has singled out the 10-year old for preferential treatment. As it turns out, the youth has a liver compatible with Javi's blood type, and Javi needs a fresh liver.  Javi hires a surgeon (Patrick Bauchau of "A View to a Kill") to harvest the youngster's liver and transplant it into his body.  Interestingly, "Get the Gringo" could be compared to the silent Charles Chaplin comedy "The Kid" because an adult sets out to help a less fortunate child.  Indeed, aside from the urchin who befriends him, Gibson is as virtuous as Saint Peter compared with the murderous malcontents who populate the prison.

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Life in "Get the Gringo" is cheap, and death occurs when you least expect it. Three armed guys stroll into the prison at one point and try to ice Driver. They hit everybody but Driver. Bodies litter the premises. The Warden (Fernando Becerril of "Ravenous") informs Javi, who rules the prison with his thugs, that the government plans to shut them down as a consequence of the gunfight. Of course, the whole point to any prison picture is how the hero manages to escape. Happily, Gibson survives with everything intact, while the treacherous villains bite the dust. Grunberg orchestrates several chaotic shoot-outs, and Gibson is by no means a typical convict. When they fingerprint him, the authorities discover that he has burned off his fingerprints. Everybody is out to take advantage of him, even some treacherous Americans, but Driver turns the tables on everybody.

 "Blackout" production designer Bernardo Trujillo has performed miracles with the closed down Veracruz prison where "Get the Gringo" was lensed on location. Grunberg and Trujillo have managed to recreate a world teeming with the dregs of humanity, a microcosm of Hell, where men degenerate into brutish savages and display no qualms about killing each other. Basically, what you've got is survival of the fittest in the worst place on Earth. This miserable hell hole turns out to be a paradise ripe for the plucking for the self-serving Driver who has just eluded the Texas police with several millions of dollars in loot.

Initially, "Get the Gringo" was entitled "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." At least the latter title has some irony, but "Get the Gringo" gets to the point quicker and summarizes the action. Director Adrian Grunberg gives a good account of himself. The prison setting looks thoroughly authentic, and Grunberg relies on Mexican music to evoke the culture. Fans of Mel Gibson who haven't seen him in a gripping action thriller since his "Lethal Weapon" days won't feel like they have been shortchanged. Gibson has done nothing like "Get the Gringo," and no Hollywood epic has depicted life behind bars as "Get the Gringo." Life below the border has never been presented so pungently unless you've seen something comparable like Luis Buñuel's 1950 crime movie "The Young and the Damned."  Incidentally, "Get the Gringo" is available in America only as a video-on-demand through Direct TV, while the film is showing in theaters in the rest of the world.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE DEVIL INSIDE" (2012)

The horror chiller "The Devil Inside" (O out of ****) gives movies about exorcism a bad name. Face it, William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" (1973) still ranks as the best exorcist movie of all time. Nothing made since then can match the impact of this landmark movie, least of all its lackluster sequels. Nevertheless, Hollywood continues to crank out new movies about exorcism as if time had eroded the demonic fury of "The Exorcist.” Warner Brothers did the next best thing; in 2000, they re-released Friedkin's frightening film in a revamped version that performed startlingly well at the box office. Lately, the studios have conjured up three exorcism movies. Sir Anthony Hopkins starred in the respectable hair-raiser "The Rite" back in the spring of 2011. Sadly, "The Rite" bore a PG-13 rating so it possessed little bite. The low-budget, Louisiana-set, yell-bent yarn "The Last Exorcism" preceded "The Rite" by several months, but it furnished more irony than chills. Now, Paramount Pictures has released writer & director William Brent Bell's micro-budget "The Devil Inside," another misguided entry in the pseudo-documentary, ‘found footage’ genre. Like “The Blair Witch Project,” “Cloverfield,” and the “Paranormal Activity” trilogy, "The Devil Inside" sets out to enhance its simulated verisimilitude by featuring a character who documents the action on video. Neither “The Blair Witch Project” nor “Cloverfield” exploited this approach with any success. Moreover, none of the subtlety and artistry which exemplified the "Paranormal Activity" epics augments this abrupt 87-minute gobbledygook. Worse, "The Devil Inside" regales us with lukewarm exorcism scenes and lackluster performances. You know an exorcism movie is in trouble when a barking dog provides its scariest moment.

Attractive Isabella Rossi (Brazilian-born actress Fernanda Andrade of "Why Am I Doing This?") is the daughter of Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley of "Wild about Harry”) who went berserk back in 1989. "The Devil Inside" opens with Maria's cryptic phone conversation with a 911 operator and her confession that she killed two priests and a nun during an exorcism at her house. Afterward, we're treated to a behind-the-scenes peep at the gory crime scene; detectives wander through the blood-splattered residence in confidential footage mocked up to resemble grainy, decades old VHS tape. Ultimately, the court rules Maria is guilty by reason of insanity when she slew the three people. Eventually, Maria winds up heavily sedated in Rome, Italy, at the Centrino Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Director William Brent Bell fast-forwards to December 2009. A grown-up Isabella, who was only a child when her mother slaughtered the Catholics, hires documentary filmmaker Michael Schaefer (Ionut Grama of "The Whistleblower") to chronicle her mom's case. Basically, she wants to learn whether her mom is possessed by a demon or is mentally ill. Furthermore, she wants to convince herself that whatever happened to mom won’t happen to her. In other words, does demon possession or mental illness run in her family?

Isabella and Michael fly to Rome to visit Maria. While she is in the Eternal City, Isabella sits in on an exorcism lecture at a Catholic school. Afterward, she meets a couple of clerics, Father Ben Rawlings (Simon Quarterman of "The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior") and Father David Keane (Evan Helmuth of "Fever Pitch"), who are pretty liberal minded about exorcisms. If the Church refuses to countenance an exorcism, then this dynamic duo deliver the demons on the sly without the church’s blessing. Isabella wants to know more about exorcisms, and she is prepared to get a Ph.D. in demon possession. However, Rawlings advises Isabella to forgo any more exorcist classes. Instead, he invites her to witness an exorcist with David and him. Isabella's first exorcism occurs in the basement of a house in Rome. Rawlings and Keane use modern-day gadgets to support them. They outfit their patients with a heart monitor and photograph the size of the patient’s pupils to determine their actual condition. The young Italian girl, Rosa (Bonnie Morgan of “Piranha”), who they exorcise spews some profanity and has her period. At one point, she breaks her bonds and scuttles up a wall like a roach, but the priests cast out her demon. Isabella is now prepared to meet her mom.

Maria surprises Isabella when she reminds her daughter that an abortion she consented to years before won't put her in God's good graces. Naturally, Isabella is appalled by this revelation from somebody who hasn't seen her in twenty years. Later, the Fathers attach Maria to their gadgets, and she surprises them. Not only does she utter epithets in several tongues, but she also clobbers Father Rawlings and sends him flying across the room. Nothing that either Isabella or the Fathers discover about Maria convinces the Vatican to review Maria's case. As it turns out, the Vatican has long since washed its hands of Maria. This surprises our protagonists despite the fact that Maria killed three ordained exorcists back in 1989. Meantime, Father Keane experiences feelings of paranoia, and he has good reason. The devil inside Maria has taken residence up in him! Keane almost drowns an infant during a baptism. Later, he relieves a Roman cop of his firearm and finishes himself off. Of course, Michael is speechless. Unfortunately, this all this creates chaos of another kind which is more calculated to make you cackle rather than cringe.

"The Devil Inside" isn’t as scary as “The Exorcist.” The closest Bell's film comes to scary is creepy. Ultimately, however, creepy degenerates into campy. Nothing in this pedestrian horror movie will make you sleep with the lights on all night. The disclaimer at the outset that "the Vatican does not endorse this movie” shouldn’t surprise anybody. Worse, Bell and co-producer Michael Peterman wrap up everything far too quickly with an abrupt ending that sabotages any sense of closure. The last shot contains a website address (www.TheRossiFiles.com.)where all the answers are presumably available. Mind you, this is a terrible way to conclude a movie, but then “The Devil Inside” isn’t worth a Hail Mary.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO" (2011)

If you saw both versions of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” side by side, you could spot the differences between the 2009 Swedish original and the 2011 American remake. Nevertheless, the revelations in the other won’t be as surprising. “Fight Club” director David Fincher brings his obsession with serial killers with him to this top-drawer adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s international bestseller. Fincher scored his first major cinematic success with the Brad Pitt & Morgan Freeman crime mystery “Se7en” (1995) about a cunning serial killer, and he explored similar subject matter in “Zodiac” (2007) a film about the real-life murders in San Francisco which spawned Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” franchise. Considering that the gritty subject matter of Larsson’s novel concerns a man who rapes and then murders women, the pairing of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (**** out of ****) and Fincher seems ideal. Oscar winning “Schindler's List” scenarist Steven Zaillian, who received Oscar nods for “Awakenings” as well as “Gangs of New York,” brings his formidable skills to bear as the sole scribe. Indeed, little is amiss in the Fincher & Zaillian retread, except cat lovers probably won’t appreciate the headless feline that winds up on our hero’s door step. The cat was conspicuous by its absence in the Swedish version. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two films is the casting of Lisbeth Salander. Noomi Rapace registered brilliantly as the eponymous heroine in the original, but newcomer Rooney Mara is no slouch. Mara wears insanity as persuasively as her black, boot-polish Goth make-up and her punk rock coiffures. Any preference you have may boil down to your choice between either Ms. Rapace or Ms. Mara. Each deliver chilling performances, and the Lisbeth Salander character qualifies as a biggest milestone in the depiction of women in film since the female assassin in the 1990 French action yarn “La Femme Nikita.”

Aging Swedish business magnate Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer of “The Sound of Music”) fears that he has few years left. The mysterious disappearance of his niece Harriet is the one thing which has haunted him for 4o years. She vanished without a trace one day at a family reunion. Neither the authorities nor Henrik were ever able to find her. To add insult to injury, Henrik has received a framed picture of a flower annually on each birthday. Harriet gave him the first flower, but lately Henrik suspects that all subsequent flowers since she disappeared have been sent by Harriet’s killer. Henrik feels like he is being ridiculed and he has suffered from this torment long enough. He hires an illustrious Swedish political journalist who writes for the magazine “Millennium.” A reluctant Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig of “Casino Royale”) accepts Vanger’s job offer since he has just lost a highly publicized libel suit against a notorious Swedish billionaire investment banker, Hans-Erik Wennerström (Ulf Friberg of “Exit”), and the court settlement has wiped out his savings.

Henrik commissions Blomkvist to write his memoirs in part because he abhors the corrupt Wennerström. Moreover, he possesses files on Wennerström which will damage the billionaire’s reputation and he promises to give them to Blomkvist after he completes his assignment. What Blomkvist doesn’t know is that Henrik’s attorney, Dirch Frode (Steven Berkoff of “Octopussy”), has employed Milton Security to conduct a background check on Blomkvist. The individual who does the background check is a 23-year old girl, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara of “Youth in Revolt”), and she leaves no stone unturned in her thorough investigation. Once Henrik hires Blomkvist, he explains that his family is pretty hideous bunch. Two of his brothers joined the Nazi Party in Sweden during World War II. Some don’t talk to each other even though they live in houses on an island linked to the mainland by a single bridge. Furthermore, Henrik suspects that one of them may have murdered poor Harriet. Henrik installs Blomkvist in a nearby cottage and provides him with every shred of evidence that the police relied on during their investigation of Harriet’s disappearance.

Later, things go awry when Henrik suffers a heart attack, and everybody but Frode expects him to die. At the hospital, some of Henrik’s relatives demand that Blomkvist be dismissed, but Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgård of “Thor”) convinces the family to allow Blomkvist to complete Henrik’s chronicle. Meantime, Lisbeth encounters her own woes when her guardian suffers a stroke, and the state replaces him. Lisbeth, it seems, has a life filled with tragedy. We learn that she burned her abusive father over eighty per cent of his body because he beat her mother without mercy. Since her assault on her father, Lisbeth has been in trouble and is now a ward of the state. The state transfers Lisbeth over to the villainous Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen of “Soul Assassin”)who shows little sympathy to Lisbeth. He humiliates her with questions about her private life. Basically, they get off on the wrong foot, but Lisbeth manages to bring the evil Bjurman around to her way of thinking as suffering abuse at his hands. These scenes are the reason that "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" carries an R-rating for explicit sexuality.

Eventually, Blomkvist finds the mystery so overwhelming that he asks Frode for an assistant and Frode recommends Lisbeth. Together, they struggle to not only find clues but also to interpret those clues correctly. While Blomkvist interviews the Vanger family, Lisbeth performs the leg work. She turns out to be a genuis with computers, brazenly hacking into anybody's account to obtain information.

If anything differentiates the two films, the casting disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist does. Stockholm born actor Michael Nyqvist appears more believable in the original, but English born actor Daniel Craig holds his own in the remake. Actually, were it not for radical, off-beat character of Lisbeth, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” would amount to little more than a complex European whodunit set in a scenic, snow-swept wonderland. In fact, it is Lisbeth who gives the film its lurid but gripping quality. She assumes a role of greater significance in the Swedish sequels and probably will in the American sequels. She emerges as a female Rambo with a no-nonsense attitude. If she were a cat, she would claw more often than purr. Although “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” clocks in at a lengthy 158 minutes, director David Fincher doesn’t squander a second. He knows the right moment to cut away from one scene to another to heighten suspense. Furthermore, despite the graphic crime scene photos and the misogyny, Fincher is careful enough to never rub our noses in it.

FILM REVIEW OF ''NIGHT NURSE'' (1931)

"The Public Enemy" director William Wellman tackles the issue of medical ethics in this blue-collar melodrama from Warner Brothers, "Night Nurse," (*** out of ****) about an unsavory quack trying to starve two vulnerable pre-school children to death to get his grimy hands on their trust fund. A young Barbara Stanwyck stars as the crusading nurse heroine who sets out to save the kids from the despicable likes of Clark Gable--in a loan-out role--as a slimy small time hood who has no qualms about slugging women. This snappy, Depression-era, 72-minute, black & white expose about hospitals and nurses qualifies as gripping but often sordid tale. Wellman doesn't foreground the usual romantic conventions by focusing primarily on the relationship between the heroine and the hero. The romantic scenes between Barbara Stanwyck and Ben Lyon as they flirt take a backseat to the subversive plot about children-in-jeopardy. Barbara Stanwyck's performance as a young nurse seems callow and uncertain at times, nothing as fierce some as she was later in "Baby Face," but Joan Blondell is her usual jaunty self. It is exciting to catch Clark Gable at this point in his illustrious career before he made good at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He delivers an electrifying performance as a thoroughly loathsome hood who stands out above everybody else. Interestingly, James Cagney was the first choice to play the thug that Gable would incarnate, but Cagney had ascended the stairs of stardom and the studio sought somebody else.

"Night Nurse" emerged as a departure from the typical Hollywood production in the wake of the silent picture era. When you watch "Night Nurse," pay attention to all those tracking shots as well as other where Wellman moves the camera. Early Hollywood sound pictures were primarily static because producers and directors were fearful of generating sound when they moved their cameras. Indeed, in some early sound pictures, the camera operator was sealed in a soundproof box with the camera and had to hold his breath since there was on air in the sealed up camera. Moreover, Wellman recorded live audio when he moved his cameras which was something of an innovation, too. He was one of the first filmmakers to dangle a microphone from a boom above his actors and actresses as they delivered their dialogue. If you have any doubts about the use of boom mikes, look at all those tell-tale shadows of the boom mikes on the walls. The opening shots lensed through the windshield of an ambulance careening down one street and then another to a hospital emergency room is invigorating, enough so that Wellman repeated the same sequence at the end.

Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) wants to be a nurse. She nearly misses the opportunity because she lacks a high school diploma. Wellman and his scribes make her heroine sympathetic from the start because her mother's death forced her to drop out of high school. Since she doesn't have the diploma, a stern-minded nurse refuses to accept her as a probationary nurse. Fortunately for Lora, the man hurriedly entering the revolving door at the hospital's front entrance catches her on the way out and knocks her handball to the floor. This callous fellow turns out to be Dr. Arthur Bell (Charles Winninger of "Nothing Sacred") and he persuades the Superintendent of Nurses, Miss Dillon (Vera Lewis of "Intolerance") to give Lora a chance. "Rules are important," Dillon dictates from the get-go, and "Night Nurse" is about about breaking rules, not only in the medical field but also the movies. Dillon assigns another nurse, Maloney (Joan Blondell of "Three on a Match"), to show Lora the ropes, and those ropes are tightropes.

First, Maloney warns Lora not to fall in love with either doctors or interns. Cynically, Maloney recommends patients with dough. Second,the nurses must follow strict rules to keep their respective jobs. For example, she has one hour to herself and must work until 7 pm. As long as she is in bed with lights out by 10 pm, she has nothing to fear. Moreover, if they are caught out of bed after 10 pm, they face the prospect of additional night shifts. Later, Lora learns that she earns a paltry $56 per week. A cocksure intern, Eagan (Edward J. Nugent of "Prison Shadows"), pulls a practical joke on Lora. Eagan stashes a human skeleton in her bed. Lora screams and he pokes his head in to laugh at them. Meanwhile, the scream has awakened Miss Dillon who storms into their room. Maloney mistakes Dillon for Eagan and flings a slipper at her. Dillon makes Lora take two weeks on the night shift at the emergency clinic. One evening, Lora patches up a wounded bootlegger, Mortie (Ben Lyon of "Indiscreet"), who persuades her not to report his bullet wound. They become friends, and Mortie saves Lora later when she finds herself in a tight spot.

Eventually, Lora graduates from the nursing program and gets a night nurse job with an unscrupulous Dr. Milton A. Ranger (Ralf Harolde of "Killer Shark") who explains that the best nurses is keep her mouth shut. Maloney handles the day shift, while Lora works the night shift, attending to two children, Nanny (Marcia Mae Jones of "The Champ") and Desney (Betty Jane Graham of "Alias the Doctor"), suffering from malnutrition. One evening, when she tries to help the drunken Mrs. Ritchey (Charlotte Merriam of "Alimony Madness"), Lora is assaulted by the drunken boyfriend and Nick, the Chauffeur (Clark Gable of "Gone with the Wind") intervenes. Lora is about to call the police, but Nick clobbers her on the chin. When Mrs. Maxwell, the Housekeeper (Blanche Friderici of "Thirteen Women") lets slip that Dr. Ranger and Nick, the Chauffeur are in cahoots to kill them for their trust fund money, Lora goes to Dr. Bell. Bell warns her that nobody will believe her hysterical accusations about Ranger. When Lora wants to quit, Bell convinces her to continue to work so she can gather evidence to be used against Ranger and Nick. Lora and Mrs. Maxwell are trying to save Nanny with a milk bath when Nick intervenes. There is a wonderful close-up of the bath tub being emptied out into the silk with the doll that Nanny had that sums up the old saying do not throw the baby out with the bath water. Anyhow, things are touch and go until Mortie shows up with a pistol in his pocket and sends Nick packing.

"Night Nurse" is an interesting and entertaining Pre-Code film.

FILM REVIEW OF ''ORDER TO KILL'' (SPANISH-1975)

Hispanic writer & director José Gutiérrez Maesso has helped pen screenplays for several exciting actioneers, including "Ricco, The Mean Machine," "Train from Durango," "The Hellbenders," "Minnesota Clay" and "Django." Maessco's co-scenarist Massimo De Rita has an interesting list of screenplay credits: "The Valachi Papers," "Companeros," "Violent City," and "Hell's Brigade: The Final Assault." If this surfeit of talent weren't enough, Eugenio Martino of "Bad Man's River," "The Ugly Ones," and "Horror Express" contributed to the "Order to Kill" screenplay. Arduino Maiuri co-scripted De Rita's credits. Finally, Santiago Moncada added his pen to "Ricco, The Mean Machine" as well as "Hatchet for a Honeymoon." As collaborators, this talented quintet should have delivered more exciting showdowns between more colorful characters with enough last-minute reversals to distract us from the obvious ending. Instead, they have concocted a routine potboiler. "Order to Kill" (** out of ****) is enlivened by occasional outbursts of violence. Essentially, this lackluster crime and corruption melodrama concerns a feud between a veteran cop, Inspector Fred Reed (José Ferrer of "The Caine Mutiny") and a wealthy villain, Ed McLean (Kevin McCarthy of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") who loves to fly around in a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter like the one on the Tom Selleck TV show “Magnum, P.I.”

"Order to Kill" shows initial promise. Appropriately, it opens with a murder, a rather elaborate but far-fetched execution. An assassin, Albert Webster (Romano Puppo of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"), relies on a gadget that will indicate when the railway car in which his target is riding in will align itself with his own railway carriage. At the precise instant, when the two railway cars are opposite each other, Albert squeezes off a burst of machine gun fire into the opposing carriage, killing his target. Albert later describes his target as a McLean
competitor. No sooner has Albert carried out this assignment than he finds himself the target of a manhunt. Clyde Hart (Helmut Berger of "The Damned") has trouble killing his friends.

Clyde's girlfriend Anne Holden (Sydne Rome of "Sundance and the Kid") tries to persuade him not to accept the murder contract. This will be Clyde's first actual hit-man contract, and Clyde reminds Anne that they need the money. Clyde has orders to kill Albert, but he balks when he recognizes his old friend Albert. This doesn't stop another assassin from shooting Albert. Afterward, Clyde goes to the casino to pick up his money. Peter Costello already knows Clyde didn't liquidate Albert. Gastel wants to know why Clyde wants out. "I'm tired of palm trees," Clyde groans. Gastel reminds Clyde about Jamaica, "Try and remember this is an island. No one can leave it unless McLean says it's okay. And in your case, I'm afraid he's not going to say it's okay." A brief gunfight erupts in the casino, and Clyde kills three of Peter's men. Later, another McLean mobster, ruthless Richard Prentice (Howard Ross) shows up and kills Gastel in cold-blood because McLean is not happy with Gastel.

Meanwhile, Clyde relaxes with Anne at the beach. He assures his blond girlfriend that they will make it off the island. The following day they go to get their boat and discover that McLean's thugs have not only beat up the boat owner but destroyed the outboard engine. Clyde doesn't get far before McLean's ruffians beat him down to the ground and leave him sprawled unconscious in the street. Anne takes him to a native woman they both know and Clyde recuperates there. Plainclothes police turn up and they take Clyde into custody. Inspector Fred Reed (José Ferrer) pulls strings and has Clyde put into his custody. Reed knows everything about Clyde's background. For example, Reed knows Clyde emigrated to America with his German parents. After spending to two years at USC, Clyde went to Vietnam, deserted and then got on McLean's payroll. He is tired of running when Reed picks him up. Reed shows Clyde that there is no way off the island. Reed wants Clyde to train three other men--Juan, Danielle, and Hugo--and then hit McLean and kill him. Clyde observes that he has never been asked to kill anybody by the police. Reed warns Clyde that one of the three will kill him if he tries to make a break for it.

Meanwhile, Reed has a telephone conversation with McLean. McLean knows
that Reed plans to retire in a couple of months. Instead of leaving McLean alone, Reed still wants to kill him. McLean accuses the inspector of nursing a 15-year personal grudge against him. He points out to Reed that Reed refuses to accept bribes and doesn't abide by the orders of his superiors to leave Mclean alone. Clyde and the three men practice getting atop a 18-wheeler without being seen. Reed has laid out a plan for them to break into McLean's compound, blow-up the big rig, and kill him. By now Anne regards Clyde as "a walking corpse" and wants nothing to do with him. She hates going to bed with Richard but fears that he will kill her if she doesn't accommodate him.

Later, Richard locates Reed and lines up the cross-hairs of his sniper scope on the old cop. Clyde and his men sneak aboard the 18-wheeler heading into McLean's place. They blow up the tractor-trailer, wipe out McLean's men, but Clyde doesn't kill McLean. Hugo winds up having to shoot McLean. When Clyde calls Reed to inform him of their success, he gets Richard to shoots and kills Reed on the phone so Clyde can hear it. Clyde heads off to tangle with Richard. Basically, everybody bites the dust in this cynical melodrama.

The obvious moral of this conventional but cynical shoot'em up is if you live by
the gun, then you will die by the gun. "Order to Kill" never generates any momentum. Everything is rather matter-of-fact. The quintet of scribes do serve up some spicy dialogue: "It's funny, whenever they give me a dirty job to do, they wish me good luck." "It's too late for doubt." "You're under orders to do it." The premise about a cop resorting to illegal means to dispose of a high-level mobster is mildly intriguing, but the film falls apart half-way into the second act that not even the sloppily handled combat scenes in act three can salvage. Interestingly, there are no zoom shots here back when zoom shots were the rage.

FILM REVIEW OF "SORORITY ROW" (2009)

A prank gone wrong in “Whisper” director Stewart Hendler’s “Sorority Row,” an unsavory, sometimes savage, but smirking R-rated remake of the vintage 1983 slasher “The House on Sorority Row,” sets off a succession of sadistic slayings. “Good Luck Chuck” scenarist Josh Stolberg and TV writer Peter Goldfinger have adapted and updated Mark Rosman’s screenplay about blood, gore, and babes and supplemented the savagery with sardonic “Heathers” humor. Not only has Hendler orchestrated the butchery and bitchery with style but he has also conjured up an atmospheric slash-a-thon that delivers several shocks and surprises. These gals and guys aren’t as idiotic as the usual slasher movie victims. Indeed, more than one girl survives.

“Quarantine” lenser Ken Sing enhances the grisly quality of this mass murderer melodrama with his grainy, raw-edged widescreen cinematography and he wobbles his camera to heighten the suspense. At the same time, editor Elliot Greenberg carves up the action with such rhythm that each jolt delivers stop-in-your-tracks impact. You’ll jump at most of these bolts from the black, especially the sound effects of sharp objects either penetrating or caroming off bodies. Little of this would register were it not for superb sound engineering. The ensemble cast that includes Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, and Jamie Chung constitute all the pretty maids in this “Row” that the mysterious slayer sets out to slay. This mass murderer doesn’t discriminate when it comes to killing, even innocent bystanders succumb to the villain’s pimped out four-way tire iron weapon. The worst thing that you can say about “Sorority Row” is that the fire department takes their own sweet time responding to the fiery finale. Of course, if they had arrived earlier, they’d have interfered with the showdown between the killer and victims. Nevertheless, the last quarter hour serves up thrills and chills that pay off with a clever ending that likely may yield a sequel.

The action unfolds at a bacchanal off campus at a sorority house. Five mischievous wenches of the sorority Theta Pi decide to humiliate a guy, Garrett (Matt O’Leary of “Brick”), who has cheated on his girlfriend with the prank to end all pranks. They have supplied Garrett with what he believes are roofies, and he has dosed Megan (Audrina Patridge of “Into the Blue 2”) with them so that she appears to have passed out. She awakens as Garrett is about to take advantage of her and then apparently dies while her devoted sisters gaze on in horror. The queen bee of the bunch, Jessica (Leah Pipes of “Fingerprints”), knows that Megan is playing possum. Jessica, Cassidy (Briana Evigan of “Step Up 2: The Streets”), Claire (Jamie Chung of “Dragonball: Evolution”) and Ellie (Rumer Willis of “Wild Cherry”) pile into a van with Megan’s limp body and a distraught Garrett. They head off to a mine in the middle of nowhere. Once they arrive, Jessica suggests that they hack the body up into pieces so it will be harder for anybody to find. Meanwhile, Megan records the scene with her cell phone. The girls spread out to collect rocks while Garrett empties his stomach on the ground. He musters his nerve and seizes a four-way tire iron from the van. When nobody is watching him, he sinks one end of it into Megan’s chest before anybody can stop him. The horrified girls close ranks in the name of ‘sisterhood and solidarity’ and cover up the crime. Unceremoniously, they dump Megan’s bloody body into an abandoned well.

Eight months later, at a graduation reception at the Theta Pi house, one of the girls in on the conspiracy, Ellie, shrieks when she thinks that she has seen the dead girl Megan walking among them. In fact, Ellie saw Megan’s younger sister Maggie (Caroline D’Amore of “Daydreamer”) who is visiting the sorority. The girls plan to celebrate another bacchanalian revelry that evening once their crusty house mother, Mrs. Crenshaw (Carrie Fisher of the first “Star Wars” trilogy) vacates the premises. Meantime, the mysterious killer dons a “Scream” monk’s robe with hood and wields a four-way tire iron modified with other forms of cutlery. This weapon compares favorably to the weapons that other serial killers in slasher movies have armed themselves with over the years. This cunning individual follows Chugs (Margo Harshman of “Fired Up”) to her shrink’s office where she plans to score prescription drugs after she performs oral sex on the crooked physician. When Chugs isn’t looking, the killer sends his exotic weapon spinning through the air tomahawk style so it lodges in the good doctor’s forehead. The killer sneaks up on Chugs while she is lying on her back with an expensive bottle of liquor in her lips and shoves a bottle down her throat and then shatters it. Another girl has a spear run through her mouth pinning her head to a wall. Yet another dies from a flare gun cartridge that melts in her mouth and turns her face into bubble wrap.

Leah Pipes takes the cake as the nastiest sister of the bunch, while Briana Evigan qualifies as the nicest. She is the one who wanted to call the authorities while the others bundled Megan up in Cassidy’s coat and tossed her in the well. Meanwhile, elderly Carrie Fisher has a couple of scenes as the cantankerous Theta Pi house mother, but she cannot hit the side of barn with a pump action shotgun. The writers throw in a couple of red herrings to keep us guessing about the identity of the killer. The cast is persuasive even when the action is not. There is a whole lot of stabbing going on along with irresponsible drinking and bare breasted babes in a shower scene. In the original “House on Sorority Row,” seven girls covered up the crime while only five try to here. “Sorority Row” is a good slasher movie that is worth watching more than once.

Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn play newlyweds in "Pitch Black" writer & director David Twohy's "The Perfect Getaway" (***1/2out of ****) who encounter peril in paradise on the picture post card Hawaiian island of Kauai when they learn that homicidal maniacs are on the prowl. This scenic thriller boasts one of the best twists that you will see, but perhaps won't see until it has surprised you. The casting of Jovovich and Zahn—as unlikely a couple as you might imagine—is perfect when you consider the other two couples that co-star with them.

Our newlyweds fly to Hawaii to hike to a remote beach. Before they arrive at their destination, Cydney(Milla Jovovich of the "Resident Evil" movies) and Cliff (Steve Zahn of "Strange Wilderness), learn that a murderous couple has slain one couple and the local police are hot on their trail. The two couples that they wind up contending with behave like natural born killers, and Twohy keeps you guessing until the last quarter-hour reveals who poses the genuine threat. "The Perfect Getaway" goes against the grain by creating suspense and tension in wide-open spaces during daylight hours the same way that Alfred Hitchcock did in his classic Cary Grant movie "North By Northwest." Sadly, "The Perfect Getaway" isn't entirely perfect owing to a last minute flaw in the plot that is never adequately resolved. Nevertheless, if you're searching for an intelligent, white-knuckled exercise in suspense, "The Perfect Getaway" is the movie that you need to getaway and watch. Thriller chillers like "The Perfect Getaway" thrive on red herrings. These cleverly crafted narrative ploys are designed to mislead viewers into believing that the people who look suspicious really are suspicious. Twohy opens the action with video sequences from our couple's wedding with their many friends wishing them well for the future. The scene shifts then to Cydney and Cliff cruising along carefree in their jeep while Cydney shoots a video of them with their Sony HDT camcorder. Our unsuspecting couple have decided to hike through the lush Hawaiian wilderness and during a helicopter ride, they choose their destination. They stock up on provisions at a local store and wheel away ready to go. A discarded newspaper caught under their front tire contains a front page story about a murdered couple for our benefit. As our heroes ride through the rural beauty, they spot another couple walking along the road. As it turns out, hitchhikers Cleo (Chris Hemsworth) and Kale (Marley Shelton), aren't exactly in route for the same destination. Initial misgivings about picking up hitchhikers make our heroes reconsider their offer to give them a ride. They are ready to ditch this duo, but then have second thoughts and agree to take them. Kale decides that he doesn't want to ride with them because he doesn't like their attitude towards he and his girlfriend. Everything about this sleazy looking couple, however, gives off bad vibes, and Cydney and Cliff are relieved when they refuse to ride with them.

No sooner have our heroes gotten onto the trail than they run into another equally suspicious couple that literally wear signs around their necks that they could be the murderers. Nick (Timothy Olyphant of "Hitman") smiles far too often and concocts tall tales about his military exploits. He carries weapons that make Cliff's skin crawl and later he pokes fun at Cliff's fear. Nick's Southern girlfriend Gina (Kiele Sanchez), reinforces the anxieties that our couple have about them. Nick loses Cliff in the woods as they stalk for a goat for an evening meal, and Nick returns with the carcass draped across his shoulders. He deposits in front of Sanchez and she guts the carcass and removes the entrails. At this point, Cydney and Cliff are worrying that Nick and Sanchez are going to eviscerate them, too. Twohy sweetens up the story with moments of spine-tingling suspense that will make you squirm uncomfortably. He makes Cydney and Cliff appear helpless in comparison to the other two couples and our heroes are sweating with considerable anxiety.

About an hour into this cat & mouse exercise in melodrama, the killers unveil themselves and our heroes have to think fast and take action even faster. There is a glitch near the end that mars this otherwise first-rate yarn but it may not bother you as much as it troubled me. Mystery fans should enjoy this nervy epic that makes the most of our own fears about evil people. Twohy does a good job of stringing audiences along until the big reveal and then he slams the action into high gear. You have to wonder if the murderous couple are going to triumph as is the case in so many modern horror stories like "The Descent." Prepare to gnaw your knuckles if you watch "The Perfect Getaway."