FILM REVIEW OF ''COLD BLOOD" (2019)

French writer/director Frédéric Petitjean makes his feature film debut with “Cold Blood,” (** OUT OF ****) a somber but suspenseful, low-budget, crime thriller set in the snow-swept wilderness of rural Washington state.  Veteran actor Jean Reno toplines in the familiar role of a professional hitman who prefers peace and solitude to the chaos and anarchy of the city.  Nowhere near as entertaining as “Le Femme Nikita” or “Leon: The Professional,” “Cold Blood” qualifies as a cat and mouse thriller between a quarry and its prey.  Imagine a slight spin on the Stephen King movie “Misery” (1990) where a woman saved a famous author after a car crash and confined him to a bed where she maintained him in excruciating captivity.  “Cold Blood” depicts a somewhat similar storyline.  A young girl has an accident in the middle of nowhere, and a suspicious hermit--a hitman in hiding--helps her recover at his secluded cabin.  The two suspect each other of treachery, but the film plays out under different circumstances than “Misery.” 

Filmed largely on location in the Ukraine, “Cold Blood” benefits immeasurably from the atmospheric, widescreen cinematography of “Fifth Element” lenser Thierry Arbogast.  “Cold Blood” is serene looking, but beneath that serenity lurks evil.  Reno is as cold and calculating as he was in “Le Femme Nikita” and “Leon: The Professional,” but he has been cast here as the villain rather than a hero.  Sarah Lind portrays Melody, the daughter of an underworld crime czar, who plans to avenge the murder of a father whom she barely knew. Joe Anderson is a tenacious N.Y.P.D. detective who never gives up a case.  Happily, Petitjean doesn’t drag out the obvious, and “Cold Blood” doesn’t wear out its welcome before the villain receives his just comeuppance.  Nevertheless, despite its many contemplative strengths, this tense movie is neither a date night outing nor a supercharged shoot’em up.

“Cold Blood” opens with a lone figure careening recklessly through mountainous white terrain on a snowmobile.  A sudden accident launches the rider into a head over heels trajectory into the sky as if propelled from a catapult.  The rider smashes into the ground, and the impact knocks the helmet clean off, so the victim tumbling into the snow is revealed to be a young woman. When she manages to regain consciousness, Melody (Sarah Lind of “The Humanity Bureau”) finds a tree branch partially embedded in her thigh.  Mustering her nerve against the horrific pain, this dark-haired twentysomething removes a fragment of the tree branch.  During the crash, she skinned up her face, and she has blood caked on her forehead. 

Afterward, Melody crawls on her belly down a pristine white hillside, leaving a trail of bright red blood until she passes out again near a remote cabin by a lake where a solitary figure sits ice water fishing.  After Henry discovers her body inexplicably on his property, he carries Melody into his cabin and dresses her wounds as best he can, considering they are seventy miles from civilization.  Moreover, reclusive as he is, Henry isn’t prepared to accommodate guests, especially injured ones who require medical treatment. Fortunately, Henry has enough medical training and the equipment to keep Melody alive.  Mind you, the logistics of Petitjean’s plot calls for Melody’s injuries to be moderate but not life-threatening.  She is in no position to rummage around Henry’s cabin and ends up tearing open the wounds that she inflicted on herself during the accident.

At this point, Petitjean leaves the two in the cabin and flashbacks ten months earlier to the bustling metropolis of New York City, where Henry is walking on a treadmill at a fitness club.  A sleazy millionaire industrialist with organized crime ties, Kessler (Jean-Luc Olivier) joins Henry later in a steamy sauna accompanied by his two bodyguards.  Somehow, after Henry excuses himself from the sauna, one of the bodyguards notices Kessler is bleeding from a wound.  Later, at an entirely different place, Henry removes an inconspicuous attaché case crammed with currency from a coin locker. 

At Kessler’s funeral, two plainclothes detectives, Kappa (Joe Anderson of “Amelia”) and his partner Davies (newcomer Ihor Ciszkewycz), discuss the peculiar nature of the industrialist’s demise.  According to the so-called ‘criminal’s manual,’ killers are supposed to attend their victim’s funeral, but Henry knows better than to show up for the last rites.  Kappa explains to Davies that the bullet which killed Kessler was made from ice, so the police cannot use ballistics to trace the gun.  Mind you, the ice bullet gag is an old assassin’s trick dating as far back as “Corruption” (1933) where a man was shot and killed with an ice bullet to frame another fellow for the murder.  Although the case looks like a dead end for Davies, Kappa pursues it relentlessly. Anyway, everything comes full circle twenty-one minutes later as the gal who wrecked her snowmobile arrives in Spokane to rent a bike.

Of course, whether she wants to admit it, Melody doesn’t have a clue about what she is letting herself in for when she stalks a career assassin who carefully plans everything.  Indeed, as we learn later, Henry knew the odds were outlandish a pretty damsel-in-distress would show up conveniently near his front door with injuries which weren’t fatal but required immediate care.  Petitjean ignores pesky reality.  Naturally, Melody needed an excuse to justify her presence.  Apparently, however, it never occurred to our heroine that she might have killed herself and accomplished nothing. 

“Cold Blood” amounts to a thinly plotted stalemate between these two characters for most of its 91 minutes.  They treat each other with extreme caution and utter few words.  They behave like two predators circling each other, biding their time for the right moment to catch the other off-guard.  Melody has no idea Henry is prepared for virtually any contingency.  Simultaneously, Henry cannot imagine the unsatisfying surprise ending that catches everybody—heroine, villain, and audience--napping.  Altogether, “Cold Blood” is a little too anemic for its own good.

FILM REVIEW OF ''KIN" (2018)

Two heads are better than one, so the old adage goes.  Sadly, this doesn’t apply either to the Baker brothers or their directorial debut, “Kin” (1/2 OUT OF ****), that juggles a sci-fi thriller about a lost space gun, a dysfunctional family crisis with a juvenile-in-jeopardy, a cross-country chase, and a revenge melodrama.  Basically, Australian brothers Jonathan and Josh Baker developed “Kin” from their own fifteen-minute short “Bag Man” (2014).  In “Bag Man,” an African-American youngster stashes an exotic space carbine under his bed at home without informing his stern single mom.  Sneaking it out in a duffel bag for target practice, he winds up in a remote clearing, but rescues a man with a bag over his head from three murderous ruffians.  They were armed and abusive to the bag man and had bound his wrists behind his back.  At one point, one of the three wields a shovel and knocks the bag man off his knees onto his head.  The black kid disrupts their orgy of violence, and the shooting commences.  The bizarre alien weapon dissolves the three assailants into atoms when the kid lets them have it!  Lean, mean, and electrifying, “Bag Man” doesn’t squander a second.  Indeed, the Bakers left a lot to the imagination, but most people could probably fill in the gaps.  Not only did I enjoy “Bag Man” (*** OUT OF ****), but I could watch it again.  

Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to “Kin.”  First, the Baker brothers bite off more than they can chew. Scenarist Daniel Casey of “The Passage” has helped to expand the plot far beyond “Bag Man” with too many stock characters.  Second, the only character who deserves our sympathy is gunned down too early.  Third, the rest of the characters—except for the African-American teen who salvaged the weapon—are worthless specimens of humanity with little dimension.  Fourth, the filmmakers could have told us a little about this otherworldly firearm and its apparently infinite ammo capacity.  We never learn if it contains a battery that keeps it charged up and ready to blast.  Fifth, the mysterious weapon that the youth found isn’t deployed until halfway through the road trip.  Furthermore, our juvenile protagonist doesn’t have a chance to display its heavy-duty firepower until an explosive finale in a besieged Nevada police station.

“Kin” opens in modern-day Detroit, where a strange firefight occurs in a derelict factory building.  As noisy as it sounds, this activity doesn’t attract the attention of the police.  Later, a 14-year old African-American, Eli Solinski (Myles Truitt of “Dragged Across Concrete”), who rides his bike around to these forsaken edifices, scours them for anything of value.  Although he is black, Eli is the adopted son of a hard-working contractor, Hal Solinski (Dennis Quaid of “The Long Riders”), but the Solinskis have fallen on hard times.  Hal’s wife has died, and his oldest biological son, Jimmy (Jack Reynor of “Free Fire”), has just been released from prison after a six-year sentence.  Hal and Jimmy don’t get along, but Hal is letting Jimmy sack out at the house until he can land a job.  When Jimmy asks his father for a job, but Hal refuses to hire him because he is an ex-con.  Jimmy looks up an old friend, Taylor Balik (James Franco of “Future World”), who deals in contraband firearms, and reassures him, he hasn’t forgotten about the $60-thousand that he owes him.  Taylor demands his dough pronto, and he lacks patience.  Jimmy approaches Hal about a loan, but Hal rules it out, too.  One evening, when Hal returns to his office with Eli riding with him, he confronts Jimmy, Taylor, and Taylor’s brother.  They have broken into his office and are ransacking his safe.  Hal brandishes a crowbar, and a deadly fight ensues.  Hal dies from a gunshot wound, but Taylor’s brother bites the dust, too.  Managing to escape, Jimmy flees in Hal’s truck with Eli.  Repeatedly, Jimmy concocts one lie after another to dupe Eli into believing that Hal has dispatched them off on a cross-country trip to Lake Tahoe where they will all reunite.  Eli packs a few things, including the duffel bag with the futuristic weapon.

Earlier, while combing through a deserted factory building, Eli discovers two space soldiers in a sinister black outfits.  One of them had lost his head during the firefight.  Eli handles a strange-looking weapon that resembles a high-tech military assault rifle.  When he is toying with the weapon, he activates it, and a laser sighting system illuminates the weapon with several gauges and numbers.  Eli says nothing about his discovery.  Later, Hal learns about Eli’s behavior troubles and school suspension.  Later, he chews him out for stealing things from deserted buildings.  All of this leads up to Hal taking Eli along with him to his office where he discovers Jimmy and Taylor ransacking the company safe.  Meanwhile, a vindictive, grief-stricken Taylor loads up an arsenal of firepower along with his homicidal henchmen, and they pursue Jimmy and Eli.  Later, two space soldiers materialize out of nowhere in the building where the gun was lost.  They activate a locator device to track the weapon.  Essentially, it’s road trip time, and everybody is lined-up in hot pursuit of our heroes.

Whereas “Bag Man” delivers simple and straightforward action, “Kin” struggles with too many characters and too many clichés.  The Bakers provide little background about the aliens, who appeared after the loss of the weapon and then reappeared for the lively finale.  The last-minute revelation not only about the weapon, but also Eli’s identity seems like a last-minute addition to generate a sequel.  During the final scene, when the aliens expose their humanoid faces, actor & producer Michael B. Jordan of “Black Panther” fame makes a cameo appearance as one.  Ultimately, “Kin” amounts to little more than a remake of the cheapjack 1978 sci-fi thriller “Laserblast” about a youth on a rampage with an alien weapon.

FILM REVIEW OF ''BABY DRIVER" (2017)

The trailer that first advertised British writer & director Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver” made it look like a Young Adult knock-off of French producer Luc Beeson’s “Transporter” franchise with rugged, austere Jason Statham.  Fortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth.  Indeed, the films both deal with elusive getaway car drivers. Despite their apparent resemblance, these movies share little in common except for their automotive audacity.  Comparatively, “Baby Driver” is nothing like Wright’s earlier comic trilogy “Shaun of the Dead” (2994), “Hot Fuzz” (2007), and “The World’s End” (2013).  Two of those movies dealt with supernatural creatures, while “Hot Fuzz” constituted a police parody.  Furthermore, “Baby Driver” is nothing like Wright’s other unconventional outing “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” (2010).  Indeed, Wright performs a 180 with “Baby Driver” (*** OUT OF ****), a straightforward, white-knuckled, R-rated, crime thriller about blood, death, and consequences.  Meantime, unlike the usual bombastic summer release, “Baby Driver” isn’t an outlandish escapade.  Instead, it is a superbly staged, adrenalin-laced actioneer which rarely pulls its punches.  The first three-fourths of this Atlanta-lensed saga is top-notch, while the final fourth marks time with the hero’s atonement for his crimes.  Another thing that differentiates “Baby Driver” from most summer movies is it is neither a blockbuster prequel nor a sequel.  Nobody gives a bad performance.  Indeed, Wright surrounds his handsome, earnest, young leading man, Ansel Elgort of “Divergent,” with a robust cast, featuring Jamie Fox, Jon Hamm, Jon Bernthal, and Kevin Spacey.  Jamie Fox and Jon Hamm are unforgettable as a pair of unhinged hoodlums who abhor each other, while Kevin Spacey towers above both as the wily mastermind of all the film’s crimes.  Clearly, something about Edgar Wright’s tale of mayhem and murder appealed to these Hollywood veterans, and they indulge in being both evil and obnoxious.  Honorable mention goes to behind-the-scenes veteran stunt coordinator Darrin Prescott of “John Wick” fame as well as the hundred or more precision drivers, riggers, camera bike riders, and stunt doubles who helped him orchestrate several harrowing but realistic driving sequences that never turn into the bizarre tomfooleries of the “Transporter” movies.  Hey, I loved the “Transporter” movies, but “Baby Driver” strives to keep things realistic.

Baby (Ansel Elgort of “The Fault in Our Stars”) is a fearless, young hellion with a taste of tunes and reckless driving that converge once he takes the wheel of any vehicle.  He survived a traumatic childhood after his contentious mother and father slammed their car into the rear of a tractor-trailer and died.  Baby escaped grievous bodily harm.  Nevertheless, he carries a couple of token scars on above an eyebrow and across his cheek. Wright sketches in Baby’s background when he doesn’t replay the scene of the accident that killed his parents.  Meantime, he spent his teen years stealing cars and keeping the Atlanta Police in his rearview mirror.  At the same time, he became a wizard with recording music in any format and grooves to his iPod whenever he careens around town to drown out “the hum in his drum” caused by tinnitus.  Writer & director Edgar Wright provides us with a protagonist both sympathetic and charming.  Baby doesn’t brag, he just drives, and when he holds onto the wheel, he can go anywhere--if there is anywhere to go.  Literally, he can thread the eye of a needle in his stick-shift cars, and he can escape from predicaments that seem well-nigh impossible. 

Initially, we see Baby drive the getaway car after a bank robbery, and he leads the Atlanta Police on a spectacular chase.  Afterward, while the well-tailored criminal mastermind, Doc (Kevin Spacey of “The Usual Suspects”), is dividing up the loot, one of the robbers, Griff (Jon Bernthal of “The Accountant”), minimizes Baby’s role in the hold-up.  Griff warns Baby that one way or another Baby will wind up with blood on his hands.  We learn from Wright’s fast-paced, expository dialogue that Doc discovered Baby because he stole Doc’s Mercedes.  Since that incident, Doc has used Baby as his wheel-man.  Moreover, Doc keeps him on his payroll so the energetic rapscallion can pay off his debt to him.  Basically, “Baby Driver” boils down to a morality yarn about a young thief who doesn’t want to see anybody die during the commission of a crime.  Unlike the rest of the characters in “Baby Driver,” Baby is the only one with a shred of decency. 

The sobering but exasperating thing about Baby is that he doesn’t elude the long arm of the law every time and that makes him more believable and vulnerable.  Fortunately, few of Baby’s asphalt antics are so impractical that they could be considered preposterous.  After an exhilarating opening sequence where our hero delivers Doc’s accomplices without a scratch, Baby embarks on an odyssey that alters his life.  Primarily, Baby falls in love with a cute, young waitress at a 24-hour diner where he likes to drink java.  Debora (Lily James of “Cinderella”) walks into Baby’s life and she turns him every which way but loose.  Once he has repaid Doc for everything that he took from him when he stole his car, Baby plans to quit crime.  In fact, he is on the straight and narrow and delivering orders for Goodfellas Pizza when Doc crosses his path again and convinces him to come back and drive for him.

“Baby Driver” boasts some of the best, high-speed driving sequences since the crime thriller “Drive” (2011) with Ryan Gosling.  The thieves conspiring with Doc are a cynical, ruthless bunch who would prefer to exit in a blaze of gunfire than submit meekly to the rehabilitative options of the criminal justice system.  Wright ramps up all this anarchy with a dynamic but diverse variety of tunes that Baby listens to according to the occasion.  The hit songs in “Baby Driver” are reminiscent of those in the two “Guardians of the Galaxy” sci-fi space operas.  Consequently, Ansel Elgort should be on the road to superstardom, because nothing about “Baby Driver” is infantile.

FILM REVIEW OF ''SICARIO" (2015)

“Prisoners” director Denis Villeneuve’s menacing manhunt melodrama “Sicario” (**** OUT OF ****) treats the war against drug cartels and their smuggling operations with even greater cynicism than even the recent David Ayer’s opus “Sabotage” with Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Imagine combining “Silence of the Lambs” with “Zero Dark Thirty,” and you’ve got the essence of this no-nonsense, atmospheric epic that boasts more shades of gray than black and white.  Emily Blunt plays a by-the-book FBI agent who wades into the murky depths of corruption and evil that threaten to undermine her sanity.  Josh Brolin and Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro co-star as the hardcases who need her shield so their shady business doesn’t violate the letter of the law.  “Sicario” isn’t a slick, superficial, standard-issue, shoot’em up with sensational stunts.  Primarily, “Sicario” argues that the best way to eliminate drug cartels is to fight fire with fire.  Similarly, “Sabotage” appropriated that attitude toward the cartels, but it lacked the credibility that “Sicario” delivers.  The good guys don’t wear white hats in “Sicario.”  They display the same conspicuous lack of regard for human life that their adversaries espouse.  You don’t walk out of “Sicario” feeling relieved so much as horrified by what it takes to conquer the evil that cartels do.  This spartan crime thriller features enough twists and turns to keep you guessing right up to its ending that may abrade your sense of moral rectitude.

“Sicario” opens with a bang as FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt of “Edge of Tomorrow”), her partner Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya), and the Bureau’s Kidnap Response Team smash into a residence in a sleepy little subdivision in sunny Arizona and discover the cartel has been using it as stash house.  They scramble inside to rescue hostages, but they find the walls of the house conceal 42 corpses like a contemporary catacomb.  Two agents tamper with a booby-trapped outside tool shed, and the explosion shreds them and flattens everybody else.  Afterward, a nonchalant guy in flip-flops, Matt Graver (Josh Brolin of “Gangster Squad”), schedules a meeting with Macer’s superior, Dave Jennings (Victor Gaber of “Argo”), and invites Kate to accompany an inter-agency task force bound for Mexico to pick up a cartel informant.  Macer signs up.  Later, she watches in horror as Graver and a convoy of black government SUVs careen into Juárez, Mexico.  Graver’s tight-lipped, second-in-command, Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro of “Savages”), warns Kate not to trust their Mexican Federal Police escort.  The naked bodies of dangling corpses garnish the perimeter of this eerie setting.  Everything boils down to pulling one individual, Guillermo Diaz (Edgar Arreola of “Machete”), out of a safe house and hauling him back across the border for interrogation.  Not surprisingly, the trip into Mexico is a picnic compared with the trip out.  The Task Force finds themselves snarled up in a traffic jam at the border crossing.  They aren’t entirely surprised when they spot cartel gunmen itching to waste them, and an inevitable shootout ensues.  Just as Alejandro warned Kate, the corrupt Mexican Federal Police side with the cartel gunmen and our anxious heroine takes out an MFP officer with well-aimed shots.  As suddenly as the shootout erupted, it concludes.

 

All is not what it appears, and Kate suspects that Graver is a really a CIA agent and Alejandro is a freelance enforcer.  “Nothing will make sense to your American ears,” Alejandro assures Kate. “And you will doubt everything that we do. But in the end you will understand.” Eventually, she realizes she is being used to lend Graver’s operation a semblance of legality.  When she confides her fears to his superior, Dave reassures Kate that everything is above-aboard and Graver’s mission has the blessings of highly placed elected officials.  Graver explains that Alejandro and he aim to create so much chaos within cartel ranks that the Mexicans will turn on themselves and start killing their own men. This strategy is designed to flush out an anonymous cartel chief whose identity remains a closely guarded secret. Alejandro promises Kate that exposure of this figure will prove catastrophic for this coldblooded criminal organization.  The biggest action scene in “Sicario” has Kate and company entering a covert cartel tunnel, shades of the Vin Diesel thriller “Fast Five,” and wiping out cartel henchmen in those subterranean depths with a clandestine army of SWAT shooters equipped with night vision technology.

“Sicario” qualifies as an impressive, but cynical crime movie.  Apart from the heroine and her partner, the protagonists are as unscrupulous as the villains that they keep in their gun sights.  Meantime, Kate Macer cannot believe that she has gotten herself trapped in this web of amorality.  As idealistic as she is, Kate believes in the rule of law, but she emerges tarnished mentally if not physically by the experience with Graver and Alejandro.  Although the talented Emily Blunt toplines this law & order saga, an unshaven Benicio Del Toro claims top honors as a PTSD-afflicted gunman.  He plays a former Mexican prosecutor who has suffered more than anybody.  The cartel decapitated his wife and drowned his young daughter in a vat of acid, so he shoots first unless he has to ask questions before he obliterates his enemies with lead.  Del Toro gives a smoldering performance.  Josh Brolin isn’t far behind as an enigmatic CIA agent who deals with every encounter with his adversaries as if he were a surfer gauging waves at the beach.  Nothing in “Sicario” comes off feeling contrived, glamour, and formulaic.  Canadian director Denis Villeneuve stages the action scenes at the border crossing and the tunnel with an impersonal air of solemnity.  British cinematographer Roger Deakins of “No Country for Old Men” depicts these escapades in dark, muted colors reminiscent of the classic Dutch painter Rembrandt that effectively captures the moral depravity perpetrated by the principals.  Watching a movie like “Sicario,” you have to wonder whether the wholesale legalization of narcotics—repellent as a solution might seem--wouldn’t offer greater salvation as a whole for everybody rather than futile free-for-all combat. 

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE TERMINATOR'' (1984)

"Piranha 2: The Spawning" director James Cameron scored his first major cinematic success with "The Terminator" (*** OUT OF ****), a gritty, but gripping low-budget science fiction horror actioneer about time travel with a curious twist. Austrian body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger virtually guaranteed that this 107 minute exercise in murder and mayhem would qualify as a blockbuster with his villainous, straight-faced portrayal of a relentless cyborg that allows nothing to stand between it and its programmed objective of executing a woman, Sarah Connor, in the past. The chief science fiction element in Cameron's film is the use of predestination paradox where it appears that history is being altered, when in fact, it is really being fulfilled. Cameron rehashed much of the "Terminator" action in his superior sequel, but he made the Schwarzenegger more sympathetic by having him serve as young John Connor's bodyguard in the follow-up film. Ironically, this $6-million plus movie wasn't that original because cybernetic organisms have been around in fantasy literature as early as Edgar Allan Poe. Nevertheless, "The Terminator" put cyborgs on the map more than "The Six-Million Dollar Man" and eventually inspired the "Robocop" franchise.

"The Terminator" opens in Los Angeles in 2029 A.D., at night while enemy Hunter Killer hovercraft prowl the post-apocalyptic rubble of the city for human prey. Heavy combat vehicles with massive treads crush hundreds of human skulls into powder while human survivors exchange fire with skeletal metal terminators with fiery red eyes. A preamble of sorts comes up and sets the scene: "The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here in our present . . . tonight." The actual story unfolds at 1:52 AM when a garbage truck driver watches crackling blue plasma-type waves envelope him and his vehicle.

A garbage truck operator is emptying trash bins when a plasma-like web of jagged blue lighting bolts envelopes his vehicle and shuts the vehicle down. He flees when the T-101 Terminator assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger of "Conan") appears naked out of nowhere. Skynet has dispatched the T-101 from the future back to the year 1984 to assassinate the mother of resistance leader John Connor. The naked T-101 saunters up to three punks at the Griffith Park Observatory overlooking Los Angeles. An obnoxious, blue-haired punk (Bill Paxton of "Aliens" and "Twister") and his friend (veteran heavy Brian Thompson of "Sudden Impact" and "Cobra") ridicule the T-101. The Terminator kills both of them while the third strips off his clothing. Meanwhile, elsewhere in L.A., another naked man, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn of "The Rock") materializes from the future. He steals a homeless man's pants, evades the L.A.P.D., breaks into a clothing store, steals Nike sneakers and a trench coat. Whereas the T-101 wants to kill Sarah, Kyle sets out to save this damsel-in-distress! Not surprisingly, young Sarah Connor doesn't have a clue that anybody yearns to either murder her or save her.

Sarah works at a fast-food restaurant. The T-101 finds three Sarah Connors in the L.A. phone book and kills the first two and then invades Sarah's apartment and kills her roommate Ginger and Matt (Rick Rossovich of "Top Gun") her boyfriend. Eventually, Sarah discovers what is happening and holes up at the Tech Noir nightclub where the T-101 tracks her down. Kyle Reese rescues Sarah, and they flee, but the L.A.P.D. capture them.  Reese has to cough up his far-fetched story to a by pompous psychologist Dr. Peter Silberman (Earl Boen of "Alien Nation") who doesn't believe a syllable of his saga. Silberman diagnoses Reese as suffering from paranoid delusions and boasts that he make a career out of analyzing the guy's stories. During Reese's interrogation scene at police headquarters with Silberman, Cameron and co-writers Gale Ann Hurd and an uncredited William Wisher, Jr., provide audiences with crucial expository information about Skynet and the war with the cyborgs that seek to annihilate mankind.

The bulk of "The Terminator" concerns the T-101's tireless efforts to kill Sarah while Reese struggles to lead her to safety. During their flight, Reese and Sarah become romantically involved and Reese gets Sarah pregnant with future resistance leader John Connor. Talk about twisted time travel?! Cameron intersperses a flashback to the future where a T-101 (Schwarzenegger's pal Franco Columbu of "Beretta's Island") invades a resistance bunker and goes on a murderous rampage before he is eliminated. Throughout the blazing action sequences, Cameron gradually strips the T-101 down to its alloyed metal endoskeleton. Reese explains to Silberman that a Terminator is a cyborg, half-man, and half-machine that will never stop until it kills Sarah. Everybody at the police station regards Reese as a fruit cake with his unbelievable story until the T-101 shows up with an arsenal of weapons and shoots up the premises, killing at least 17 cops. Reese and Sarah escape, hid out in a motel where they build pipe bombs, but the resourceful T-101 finds Sarah's mother, kills her off-screen, and imitates her so that it can learn Sarah's whereabouts. Another ramped up chase ensues with the T-101 caught in a blazing 18-wheeler. The fire scorches its entire body in the last 15 minutes so that all that remains is the skeleton. Reese dies blowing the skeleton in two. The torso of the T-101 continues to stalk Sarah until she crushes it in a tool manufacturing factory so that only the hand and forearm, which appears in the sequel "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." James Cameron has more road trip action in this thriller than actual science fiction, but the action-packed scenes more than deliver their quota of thrills and chills. One of the earliest scenes in a pawnshop has the T-101 gathering an arsenal of hardware from an unsuspecting clerk (Dick Miller) and then killing him instead of paying for it. The "I'll be back" scene at the police station massacre is probably the best scene in this supercharged little spine-tingler.

FILM REVIEW OF ''GONE GIRL" (2014)

Watching David Fincher’s deliriously tantalizing whodunit “Gone Girl,” (**** OUT OF ****) a melodrama about a troubled married couple wrestling with compatibility issues, reminded me of the film classic “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946) co-starring Lana Turner and John Garfield.  Turner and Garfield played illicit lovers who arranged the murder of Lana’s elderly husband so Garfield and she could indulge their lust.  Eventually, each had second thoughts, and murder reared its ugly head.   In “Gone Girl,” Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike experience somewhat similar woes.  They are cast as a husband and wife who have lost their jobs and find their marriage unraveling with ugly ramifications. They embark on a nerve-racking odyssey through Hell with more outlandish things happening to them than you can possibly imagine—unless you’ve read the novel.  “Gone Girl” constitutes another Hollywood adaptation of a runaway bestseller.  Happily, for a change, director David Fincher hired bestselling author Gilliam Flynn to adapt her own work.  Yes, I’ve perused Flynn’s masterpiece, and she has exercised good taste and judgment in modifying her compulsive page-turner for the screen.  Basically, this Twentieth Century Fox film release is about as faithful as any movie can be to its source material.  Minor changes occur, and some characters have been eliminated.   Nevertheless, nothing substantial has been altered.   In other words, if you loved the novel, you won’t hate what Fincher and Flynn have done with it.   As much as I enjoyed “Gone Girl,” I’ll concede the novel is slightly better than the film.   Principally, Flynn cannot translate to the screen the depths of Amy’s subversive thoughts.   Meantime, Fincher has done an admirable job of orchestrating the ‘he said; she said’ shenanigans of husband and wife.  Mind you, “Gone Girl” qualifies as more than just a spine-tingling exercise in suspense and tension where the authorities believe the husband is the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance.   This movie succeeds on multiple levels as Fincher and Flynn skewer gender politics, scandal-mongering television news personalities, marriage dynamics, and essentially society in general.

 

Nick (Ben Affleck of “Argo”) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike of “Die Another Day”) are a sophisticated New York couple who lost their jobs as a result of the recession.  When his mother is diagnosed with cancer, Nick persuades Amy to forsake her elegant brownstone in New York City, and they relocate to his North Carthage, Missouri, hometown.  Amy buys Nick a tavern called ‘The Bar’ with her trust fund to keep him busy, and Nick’s twin sister Margo Dunne (Broadway actress Carrie Coon) helps manage it.  Meantime, Nick and Amy’s marriage steadily erodes as trust issues and power dynamics exert a toll on it.  A life-long city dweller, Amy feels miserably out of place in a small town in the middle of Heartland America with too little to occupy her imagination.  She doesn’t adapt as well to this dire change of scenery as her husband.   As the morning of their fifth anniversary dawns, Nick leaves Amy at home and cruises into town to check up on his sister at the bar.  No sooner has Nick gotten there and swapped shots with Margo than a neighbor calls Nick and informs him that his front door is standing mysteriously wide open.  Rushing home, Nick finds pieces of furniture either smashed or overturned in the living room.  Amy is nowhere in sight.  Nick alerts the authorities.  North Carthage Police Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickins of TV’s “Lost”) and Officer Jim Gilpin (Patrick Fugit of “Almost Famous”) comb the premises and collect clues.  Later, the North Carthage crime scene crew uncovers evidence of a huge blood puddle in the kitchen that had been sloppily mopped up.  Repeatedly, Nick swears his innocence, but things spiral hopelessly out of control.  He learns from the police that Amy was pregnant.  Ultimately, in an act of sheer desperation, Nick hires celebrity lawyer, Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry of “Alex Cross”), to defend him.  Worst, the jealous college girl with whom Nick was having an affair exposes their adultery on prime-time television.  Although the detectives have amassed an abundance of evidence implicating Nick, Boney and Gilpin have no luck finding Amy’s body.

You could watch “Gone Girl” a dozen times and come away with something memorable each time.   Fincher has fashioned a tense thriller just as immaculate and flawless as his best movies, including “Fight Club,” “The Game,” “The Social Network,” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”  Affleck is at the top of his game as the gullible husband with something to conceal, while Pike deserves an Oscar for the many faces that she forges as Nick’s long, lost Amy.  Neal Patrick Harris displays his chameleon ability to play a cross-section of characters.  He emerges as one of Amy’s warped lovers who once stalked her.  Clocking in at virtually two hours and half, “Gone Girl” defies expectations—unless you’re conversant with the novel.  Just when you think you’ve got everything figured out, Fincher and Flynn twist another loop into their Gordian knot of a narrative.   The effect is similar to being spun around about every half-hour and gaping at the experience.    Beware, “Gone Girl” boasts a blood-soaked murder scene that is rather graphic, but this thriller remains extremely literate.   Anybody who abhors HLN ‘victim’s rights’ advocate Nancy Grace is going to appreciate the pompous character of Ellen Abbott who goes after Nick’s scalp after Amy vanishes.   Tyler Perry plays it straight as Nick’s high-profile attorney Tanner Bolt who coaches him throughout the ordeal.   In one scene, Tanner prepares his client for an important television interview.   Each time Nick answers a question with either an inappropriate tone or expression, Tanner bombards him with jelly beans.   Anybody who has ever complained about Ben Affleck’s smug pretty boy persona will love this scene.   As much as I would love to divulge some of the juicier scenes in “Gone Girl,” I cannot without spoiling the outcome.   If you love husband and wife murder movies or murder melodramas altogether, “Gone Girl” shouldn’t disappoint you.