FILM REVIEW OF ''THE GREEN HORNET'' (2011)

“The Green Hornet” (***1/2 out of ****) isn't just another jaded crime fighter movie. Those dreadful movies include “The Shadow” (1994), “The Phantom” (1996), and “The Spirit” (2008). Actually, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” director Michel Gondry and co-scenarists Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have done a commendable job with their revival of this long dormant franchise. This cinematic reboot remains largely faithful to “The Green Hornet” radio series of the 1930s. Nevertheless, Rogen and Goldberg have taken marginal liberties with their adaptation. Our misunderstood protagonist endures an abusive father and fritters away his life as a party animal until he awakens to his true potential. The cars that our heroes cruise around in pay tribute to the 1966 ABC-TV series more than the two 1940s era cliffhanger serials, "The Green Hornet" (1940) with Gordon Jones and "The Green Hornet Strikes Again" (1940) with Warren Hull. Although the radio series occurred in Chicago, the film takes place in Los Angeles where the Reid family owned newspaper "The Daily Sentinel" is published. Meantime, the people who made the new “Green Hornet” ridicule the clichés and conventions of the crime fighter film genre and refrain from making the action appear hopelessly outlandish. Not only does the film examine the essence of villainy, but it also insists that wardrobe does not a villain make. Basically, “The Green Hornet” unfolds as an origins epic. Gondry and his writers ensure that the protagonists make a realistic transition from ordinary to extraordinary. Our heroes spend at least half of the action battling each other over their respective roles as hero and sidekick when they aren’t clashing with a lethal villain who will stop at nothing to ice them. 

“The Green Hornet” opens as young Brett Reid is escorted to his father’s newspaper office at “The Daily Sentinel.” James Reid (Tom Wilkinson of “Rush Hour”) berates his elementary school age son for being expelled for fighting. Sure, Brett’s father understands life is tough for his son. After all, Brett has no mother. Brett argues he was trying to thwart some bullies. James tears the head off his son’s superhero action figure and trashes it. Brett never forgives him for this act of cruelty. Twenty years elapse, and Brett turns into a no-holds-barred, thrill-seeking party animal until his father drops dead from an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Of course, there is more here than meets the eye. Anyway, public officials flock to James’ funeral and erect a statue in his honor. 

Meanwhile, Brett still smolders with resentment toward his father. Along the way, Brett has grown accustomed to his morning coffee. When he discovers his coffee doesn’t taste as delicious anymore, he starts screaming and learns that he fired the man who made it. Brett is surprised when he meets Kato (Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou) and the two guys bond. Kato is a chauffeur/inventor. He maintained James Reid's fleet of automobiles. Moreover, he rebuilt James’ cars and incorporated bullet-proof glass in the windshields and armored plated the vehicles against gunfire. Neither really liked Reid. Brett convinces Kato to join him for a late night prank. Brett decapitates his father’s statue. As he is lugging the head away, our protagonist tries to intervene when thugs attack an innocent couple. Kato arrives in the nick of time to save Brett and demonstrate his superb martial arts skills. A surveillance camera captures Brett stealing the statue head, and he appropriates this opportunity to introduce Los Angeles to its newest nemesis.

Chudnofsky (Oscar winner Christopher Waltz of “Inglourious Basterds”) is the most dangerous criminal in Los Angeles. You either join Chudnofsky or die. An ambitious crystal meth dealer, Danny Cleere (James Franco of “Spider-Man”), berates Chudnofsky for his old-school apparel and advises him to retire. Not surprisingly, Chudnofsky wipes out Cleere and company with a devastating double-barreled automatic pistol. Meantime, Brett uses “The Daily Sentinel” to propel his mysterious alter-ego to heights of notoriety. Unfortunately, Brett realizes almost too late that he doesn’t have a clue about fighting crime. He relies on his savvy newspaper secretary, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz of “Knight and Day”), who has a college degree in journalism and criminology. As he watches the Green Hornet’s ascent to prominence, Chudnofsky calls for a meeting. The first encounter between Chudnofsky and the Hornet is pretty spectacular. Meantime, when Brett isn’t matching wits with Chudnofsky, he tangles with District Attorney Scanlon ( David Harbour of “Quantum of Solace”) who wants him to halt his news coverage about escalating crime. Scanlon is campaigning for re-election, and “The Daily Sentinel” is undermining his claims that Los Angeles crime is under control.

As a crime fighter, “The Green Hornet” resembles "Batman" and Bruce Wayne. James Reid was a newspaper tycoon, and Brett appropriates his father’s millions to pay for his exotic Green Hornet regalia and hardware. At the same time, Brett is like Zorro because he dons his emerald mask when he isn’t at the office. Of course, the chief difference between “The Green Hornet” and most crime fighters is that he behaves like a villain so criminals cannot take advantage of his virtue. In a sense, the Green Hornet emerges as an anti-heroic hero who fights for justice. Rogen and Goldberg never miss a moment to mock the crime fighter formula. What makes “The Green Hornet” doubly entertaining is that our heroes must learn the ropes of crime fighting as they are dodging lead. As they learn from their stupid mistakes, they acquire greater polish. Half of their success comes from ‘the Black Beauty.' Kato has tricked out a jet-black Chrysler Imperial so it amounts to a rolling arsenal with hood-mounted machine guns, a flame thrower, and rockets.

For the record, George W. Trendle and Fran Striker created “The Green Hornet” on January 31, 1936, at Detroit radio station WXYZ-AM. Comparatively, artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger created “Batman” about three years later in 1939. Seth Rogen makes a sympathetic hero and Christopher Waltz is a terrific villain. Altogether, “The Green Hornet” qualifies as an above-average reboot of a classic crime fighter with a stimulating car chase and some memorable confrontations.

FILM REVIEW OF "A PERFECT MURDER"

The people who remade the crafty Alfred Hitchcock suspense thriller “Dial M for Murder” (1954) as “A Perfect Murder,” with Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Viggo Mortensen, clearly knew their business. As cinematic remakes rate, “A Perfect Murder” (*** OUT OF ****) qualifies as a commendably entertaining, often hard-edged, but superior spouse-murdering spectacle which should baffle and captivate any armchair sleuth right up to its explosive, slam-bang finale. Not only have former Steven Seagal action director Andrew Davis and freshman scenarist Patrick Smith Kelly, cleverly updated this vintage but tawdry tale of deceit, but they have also condensed several plot elements so that the story is both more palatable as well as less predictable. Industry insiders claim that test audiences hated the initial ending, so Douglas and Paltrow came back to reshoot a new ending. Consequently, “A Perfect Murder” is never a slavish scene-by-scene remake of “Dial M for Murder,” but a deferential, no-nonsense, white knuckled yarn, with gritty touches of 1990s amorality.

In “A Perfect Murder,” ruthless but financially strapped tycoon Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) discovers that his elegant but unfaithful wife Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow) is cheating on him with sleazy artist David Shaw (Viggo Mortensen). Emily justifies her extramarital affair because Steven suffocates her with his domineering ways. According to Emily, Steven also fails to fulfill her emotional needs. On the contrary, David quenches Emily’s passion and makes her happy. Steven confronts David early in the movie at a diner party that Emily had planned to attend alone. Changing his mind at the last possible minute, Steven accompanies Emily to the festivity where he catches his wife off-guard as she is chatting with Shaw. David and Steven speak briefly and Shaw states that he received his art degree from Berkeley.

Later, Taylor exposes Shaw for the fraud that he is, and then blackmails him. David turns out to be an ex-con with two strikes against him. Moreover, Taylor threatens to alert the police about Shaw for an unsolved crime hanging over the ex-con’s head. Not only has David lied to Steven about his shady past, but also he has lied to poor Emily. Anyway, Steven offers David a $100-thousand dollars up front to kill Emily, and he promises an additional $400-thousand on completion of the homicide. Incredibly, David agrees. Shaw prefers Taylor’s loot to Emily’s love. Steven details a simple plan. He has stashed a key outside their apartment which David can use to gain access to their apartment without arousing suspicion. While Steven is at his club for the evening playing cards, he intends to call Emily. When Emily answers on the kitchen phone, David can slip up behind and strangle her. After he murders Emily, David is supposed to tamper with the door locks to make it appear as if a burglary had occurred.

Veteran director Andrew Davis (“The Fugitive” and “Code of Silence”) and scenarist Patrick Smith Kelly have revamped the stodgy 1950s’ “Dial M for Murder” scenario and eliminated several problems that hampered the Hitchcock film. Obviously, Hitchcock could not depict the sexual and criminal elements in the story with the same artistic latitude available to contemporary filmmakers. Rated “R” for ‘restricted,’ “A Perfect Murder” contains scenes of implied nudity, simulated sex, murder, and profanity, with 9 “f--k” words, 2 “sh-t” words, and 5 “hells” sprinkled in for local color. People are either stabbing or shooting at each other in “A Perfect Murder,” and the three principle characters stalk each other like rabid gunmen in a spaghetti western. Davis keeps the sex, violence, and profanity at comparably moderate, non-gratuitous levels. Nevertheless, “A Perfect Murder” spills more blood and portrays its violence with great authenticity than “Dial M for Murder,” but nothing approaching the visceral sadism of earlier Michael Douglas outings such as “Basic Instinct” and “Fatal Attraction.” Dutifully, Davis and Kelly have left some things intact. For instance, the key still plays a pivotal part in convicting the killer.

Aside from conforming this minor Hitchcock classic to today’s more realistic standards, Davis and Kelly have actually improved on the plot. In “Dial M for Murder,” Alfred Hitchcock devoted vast intervals of time to setting up the involved story with reams of exposition. Exposition is the vitally important stuff about the story that the audience must know to appreciate the actions of the characters. None of this information, however, is readily accessible, so the characters have to mention it in their dialogue so that the audience will know what is happening. Intricately conceived as “Dial M” was, the characters spent for too much time explaining the story. In “Dial M,” Ray Milland played the role that Michael Douglas took over in “A Perfect Murder.” Milland shares an entire scene with the murderer in “Dial M” where he must remind the killer that they are old school chums separated over the years. He reveals the killer’s wicked past and blackmails him, too. Happily, the loquacity that clutters the dialogue in “Dial M” has been pared down to the absolute, bare essentials, so “A Perfect Murder” doesn’t stall out on dialogue ad nauseam. The characters in “Dial M” stand around and discuss their predicaments, while the characters in “A Perfect Murder” go out to do things.

Just as cinematic morality has changed pervasively since 1954, so too has the technology. Cell phones, for example, have replaced standard wired telephones in Steven’s intricate scheme to kill his wife. Nearly all of the main leads as well as the secondary characters have been changed. Davis and Kelly have either enlarged or shrunken their roles. The murderer and the lover in “Dial M” consist of two entirely different characters. Gone is the lover played by Robert Cummings from the Hitchcock film, while Anthony Dawson’s murderer is combined with the lover. Condensing these two roles, the filmmakers of “A Perfect Murder” streamline the plot and make it more exciting. In “Dial M,” John Williams played the stylist British detective who figured prominently in unraveled the mystery. As Det. Mohammed Karaman, his counterpart in “A Perfect Murder,” David (“Executive Decision”) Suchet occupies less screen time. He doesn’t harass the Michael Douglas villain as much as Williams’ detective did to Milland in “Dial M”. Curiously enough, the producers here make an issue out of the detective’s Arabic heritage. During the interrogation scene, Det. Karaman and Emily share a moment when she converses with him in his native language. As peripheral characterization, this is fine, but the filmmakers never integrate it into the plot. It makes you wonder if this language gimmick played a bigger part in the resolution of the action, but got cut out when the ending changed.

One of the biggest changes in “A Perfect Murder” is wife’s role. Unlike the Grace Kelly character from “Dial M” who remained largely passive, Gwyneth Paltrow plays an aggressive multi-lingual U.N. translator and aide to the U.S. Ambassador. Paltrow’s unfaithful wife gets out often enough to learn incriminating things about her husband that Grace Kelly never did in the Hitchcock original. The scene where Paltrow struggles desperately against her assailant is better than the similar scene where Grace Kelly stabbed her killer with a pair of scissors.

They’ve changed the physical settings, too. The action in “Dial M” strays only occasionally from the cramped quarters of the London apartment inhabited by Ray Milland and Grace Kelly. Transplanting the plot to America, Davis and Kelly open up the action and venture out into the means streets of New York City. Davis and Kelly ditch the expressionistic English courtroom scenes where Grace Kelly’s character was convicted of murdering the man who tried to strangle her, too! In “A Perfect Murder,” Davis and Kelly discard this part of the original plot from Frederick Knot’s play.
Veteran action helmer Andrew Davis keeps the story moving swiftly along so that the complicated plot never decelerates the action. Davis doesn’t let the pacing lollygag. He stages the action for maximum impact. The fight scenes are brutal but brief. Davis and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski often film the action so that the perspective that audiences have implicates them in the skullduggery. Wolski’s dark, brooding Rembrandt lighting enhances the air of danger. The standard shot in “A Perfect Murder” is either a close-up or a medium shot that uncomfortably confines the characters. Davis builds considerable suspense and tension by surprising his audience at intervals with sudden off-screen action that explodes on camera. Characters come barreling off-screen to smash into other unsuspecting characters on screen. These sure fire tactics guarantee that audiences will jump. Along with production designer Philip Rosenberg, Davis creates a murky, hostile environment for his characters to inhabit.

Perhaps the worst flaw in “A Perfect Murder” is the unappealing characters. None of these people deserve much sympathy. A dapper Michael Douglas gives off sinister vibes. Steven Taylor resembles Douglas’s Oscar winning performance as Gordon Gecko from Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.” Douglas projects an effortlessly cocksure attitude that makes him an ideal thug. He wears dark apparel, and he is constantly in the midst of a scheme and a lie. As his wife Emily, Gwyneth Paltrow comes closest to attracting sympathy because she is the most vulnerable character. Nevertheless, Emily’s extramarital affair set off this chain reaction, so she isn’t entirely whitewashed. Although she wants to do the right thing, Emily is basically as selfish about herself as are both Steven and David. When we first glimpse her, she is wallowing in a spacious but seedy loft apartment with David (‘G.I. Jane’s” Viggo Mortensen). Mortensen delivers another solid performance as a scumbag. Momentarily, David’s vile painter appears to outfox both Steven and Emily. As competitors, David and Steven are almost evenly matched, though Douglas’s screen image wins out over the lesser known Mortensen.

Indeed, the Patrick Kelly screenplay bears its share of implausibilities, but so too did “Dial M.” Obviously, society does not allow movies to glamorize the act of murder, especially by letting a character commit murder without paying for the crime. Consequently, sharp and sagacious as Steven Taylor is, he is outsmarted once by the double-crossing David and later by Emily, who wins the upper hand in one of his inconsistently ignorant moments. Neither of these crucial incidents is telegraphed in the script. They occur straight out of the blue with zero foreshadowing, so that the audiences as well as Steven are caught entirely by surprise. Sure, that’s cheating, but the dramatic revelation that comes with each incident justifies it. Perhaps the biggest flaw in both movies is that a strong man cannot overpower a weak woman. Ultimately, between the two films, “A Perfect Murder” has more flash and headlong momentum than the literate and stage bound “Dial M for Murder.”

FILM REVIEW OF "COPLAND" (1997)

Writer-director James Mangold’s literate, old-fashioned crime saga “Copland,” (*** OUT OF ****) starring Sylvester Stallone, takes itself far too seriously to any fun. You should know by now that the Italian stallion gained some forty pounds for the role of the slow-witted but amiable small-town New Jersey sheriff. Indeed, watching “Copland” is like watching “Rocky” armed with a badge and a gun. Whereas “Rocky” brimmed with surprises, “Copland” springs few surprises. Mangold trots out his oddball characters, turns them loose on each other, and allows audiences to eavesdrop on the ensuing chaos. Moreover, Mangold has modeled his parable of justice clearly on the oft-told tale of the tortoise and the hare.
“Copland” takes its title from the sleepy New Jersey hamlet of Garrison just over the river from New York City. A precinct of N.Y.P.D. cops pulls duty as auxiliary transit police, so they can live outside the city. Ray (Harvey Keitel) and his fellow policemen take Mafia payoffs so they can afford to live out of state without attracting undue attention. Ray has set up a patsy to be the sheriff of Garrison. Freddy Heflin (Stallone) lost his hearing in one ear when he rescued a drowning woman. The car she was driving crashed off a bridge and sank to the bottom of a river. Freddie swam into the vehicle and lost his hearing getting her out of the car. Freddy had always dreamed of a career in the N.Y.P.D., but his deaf ear prevents him from joining the force. Along comes sneaky Ray who happily obliges, and makes Freddy a sheriff, the closest he can come to being a cop.

Ten years pass, and things take a turn for the worst. A young, highly decorated cop (Michael Rapaport) guns down two crack-smoking black youths. They side-swipe his car on the George Washington bridge. One of them pulls what appears to be a weapon on him, and the cop shoots them. Turns out that the weapon was a steering column lock. When the dirty cop Robert Patrick plants a gun on the dead kids, an irate EMT protests and hurls the machine gun into the river. The young cop freaks out and jumps off the bridge. At least, that’s the story that Ray manufactures. He smuggles the kid off the bridge in the trunk of his car, but Ray’s troubles have only just beginning.

When the dirty cops initially move the kid, Heflin and his patrol partner Cindy (Janeane Garofalo) stop them for speeding. Freddy lets them go, but catches a glimpse of the kid peering up over the backseat. The newspapers play up the young cop’s suicide, but his body never washes up. A lavish funeral is held, with his uniform buried in the casket. Later at Ray’s house that evening, the dirty cops toss the kid a send-off party. Ray’s frumpy wife (Cathy Moriarty) warns the kid before her husband and his cold-blooded pals can drown him in his backyard pool. Eventually, Freddy tracks down the kid to his clever hideout. Both of Freddy’s deputies bail out on him when he takes the kid into custody. Ray and his thugs show up, overpower Freddy, and grab the kid. They fire a gun near Freddy’s ear, and he grovels in pain while they careen off. Retrieving his shotgun, Freddy stumbles down to Ray’s house for a blood splattering shoot-out.

Writer-director James Mangold has penned a hard-hitting but ultimately routine morality play. You won’t find glamorous heroes, voluptuous heroines, multiple fireball explosions, death-defying stunts or awesome special effects here to dazzle you. “Copland” belongs to the lone-man-against-the-system genre, prominently featured in westerns from 1950s such as “High Noon” and “3:10 to Yuma.” Symbolically, Garrison, New Jersey lies across the river from New York, the same way the Rio Grande separates Texas from Mexico in westerns. A day doesn’t pass when Freddy Heflin doesn’t stare across the river at the promise that New York holds. Freddy will never realize his dreams, but that doesn’t keep him from dreaming. Hey, break out F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby if you prefer literary comparisons. Impassable barriers and borders and destinations that never materialize crisscross the moral universe of “Copland.” Everybody in “Copland” is trapped in a moral universe that makes no exceptions for looks, money, or power.

Sadly, the Mangold script trudges out the prefabricated regimen of those 1950s films. Although “Copland” has a storyline of considerable depth, Mangold directs it without generating any sense of either rhythm or hope. You don’t so much watch “Copland” as you witness its events with its oppressive “Silence of the Lambs” atmosphere. Of course, the block-headed Stallone sheriff will redeem himself before fadeout and vanquish the slimy villains, but his heroics will take a toll. “Copland” is about as straight-forward and inexorable as an episode of the classic TV series “Dragnet.” Nevertheless, “Copland” paints a bold portrait of an urban jungle of evil. Ray and his corrupt fellow cops will stoop to murder to protect their safety. The cabal that these cops form is worthy of a Shakespearian conspiracy. Suddenly, Ray’s hand-picked dupe of a sheriff awakes to a sense of law and order. Freddy realizes that if he cannot be a genuine cop, he can at least be an honest one, and he challenges Ray and his cronies.

The Freddy Heflin part is a long awaited and welcome change of pace for action hero Sylvester Stallone. The pot-belly he parades around with conspicuously parked on his gun belt resembles the shell that a turtle lugs around on his back. Sly wears a dazed expression throughout “Copland” that reminds you of a young Robert Mitchum. In any other movie, a character like Freddy would linger on the periphery and rarely attract attention. Although Stallone’s Freddy is the chief protagonist, he is the less ostentatious cop in the movie. Nothing about Freddy qualifies as cool. He is as out of date as his cloddish shoes, his white socks, and his vinyl records.

Director James Mangold and Stallone emphasize Freddy’s awkward physical nature. The first time we meet Freddy, he is drunk playing pin ball. After his coins run out, he stumbles outside and breaks into a parking meter. Later, as he drives home, a deer bursts across the road in front of him. Sluggishly, Freddy swerves off the asphalt and crashes his prowl car. He walks through the next couple of scenes looking pathetic with band aids stuck across his nose. During the final showdown at Ray’s house, Freddy handles his guns like a rookie instead of a nimble action hero.
Freddy is far from a genius, and he clumps along like the turtle. But like Rocky, Freddy is in the game for the long haul. When Internal Affairs throws in the towel and refuses to hear Freddy’s confession, the sheriff sets out to straighten things out himself. Stallone seems to enjoy re-establishing his gone to seed character every time he crosses in front of the cameras and positions his paunch near the lens. Unlike Rocky, Freddy is at a dead end. He has nowhere to go, and he doesn’t even have a girlfriend, not the kind of hero that Stallone has played in ages. Certainly not the kind of hero that impressionable audiences seek to imitate.

A fine supporting cast that includes actors Harvey (“Bad Lieutenant”) Keitel, Robert (“The Fan”) De Niro, and Ray (“Turbulence”) Liotta, Robert (“Terminator 2”) Patrick, and John (“The Rock”) Spencer bolsters “Copland.” You’re almost tempered to ignore the plot and enjoy their eloquent performances. Harvey Keitel brings a contemplative viciousness to his villainous cop. Keitel’s Ray is an organizer, a man who keeps the lid on, and makes sure nothing untoward happens. Ray is the hare of the story. Not only does he think of himself smarter that Freddy but also above the law. Meanwhile, Robert De Niro plays the frustrated Internal Affairs investigator who jogs Freddy’s memory about the meaning of the law. Ray Liotta is cast as Figgis, an undercover cop, who’s just collected a bundle of insurance money from a fire he set in his own house. He becomes Freddy’s closet friend and takes sides with Freddy when Ray’s henchmen get the drop on him. Patrick and Spencer are two of Ray’s corrupt minions who are willing to kill even one of their own if he threatens him. Michael Rapaport plays the young cop who finds himself hiding from the law.

Hypnotic performances, especially from Stallone, a solid but lugubrious story, and a sense of the inevitable make an offbeat policer like “Copland” worth watching despite its dreary pacing and predictable approach. Ironically, this is a Stallone picture where his performance is more interesting than the story.

FILM REVIEW OF ''CONSPIRACY THEORY" (1997)

Veteran Hollywood film producer Dore Schary once said actors prefer to play crippled characters because such unsavory roles afford them the opportunity to explore their thoughts about their own identity. Movie superstars love to indulge themselves in vanity projects that reflect this eccentric facet of their personalities. In the cinematically polished, but complicated amnesiac mystery-thriller “Conspiracy Theory” (*** OUT OF ****), Mel Gibson impersonates a flaky New York cabbie named Jerry Fletcher. Although he imitates the formula action hero he limned in the “Lethal Weapon” movies, “Conspiracy Theory” qualifies as a vanity project because Gibson plays an everyday citizen instead of a crusading cop. Moreover, Jerry is not tightly wrapped. Forrest Gump and he might have hit it off okay. Jerry’s prone to fits of anxiety and paranoia. Sometimes the least little thing will touch him off. As Jerry, Gibson acts perfectly rational one minute but totally loony tunes the next instant. If incarnating such a Bohemian character were not enough, Gibson models his hare-brained hack on the sarcastic Warner Brothers character Bugs Bunny. At one point, Jerry compares his antics to those of the Road Runner, but at heart he’s clearly a Bugs kind of guy. “Conspiracy Theory,” on closer inspection, emerges as a rather lengthy Merry Melody cartoon, with villainous Patrick Stewart sharing some characteristics of Elmer Fudd, Bug’s perennial adversary, while Julia Roberts appears as a Tweety Bird of sorts.

The cartoon comparison seems valid when you consider the outrageous elements in Brian (“Assassins”) Helgeland murky script, along with Mel Gibson’s self-depreciating humor. Jerry’s cluttered apartment resembles Bug’s hutch, and this cabbie has an escape hatch that Bugs would truly envy. Jerry loves to play pranks and he pulls one in the tradition of “American Graffiti on the spies who are supposed to track him. At other times, Jerry outsmarts himself like Bug’s often does and gets caught. Patrick Stewart’s first encounter with Jerry is straight out of “A Clockwork Orange.” Before the interrogation ends, Jerry has bitten Dr. Jonas’s nose and is careening about in a wheelchair screaming hilariously at the top of his voice. Gibson’s Jerry proves as much a Houdini as Bugs is in his escapades with Elmer.

As written by Helgeland, “Conspiracy Theory” is hard to follow because he throws out enough red herrings to pickle the plot. Is Jerry sane or looney? Is Dr. Jonas a good guy? Who are Jerry’s real enemies, and who are his friends? What really happened to Jerry? There is enough plot in “Conspiracy Theory” to keep you guessing hopelessly if you don’t pay close attention to the story. Jerry thinks that the conspirators are after him for something that he stumbled onto, but is that why they want him dead?

During the opening credits, we get to watch Jerry blitz his passengers with his crack pot conjectures. For example, he believes the metal pins in new hundred dollar bills are really tracking devices. He complains, too, that Benjamin Franklin on the new bills resembles the love child of Rosie O’Donnell and Fred Mertz, (“I Love Lucy’s” next door neighbor). Or that the fluoride in the water does not promote our dental health but is rather to break down our mental health. Jerry publishes a conspiracy theory newsletter, but only five people subscribe to it. “The good conspiracy is an unprovable one,” he tells Julia Roberts. Jerry scans the daily newspapers for any trace of a cover-up. Early in the film, Jerry is convinced that NASA is going to kill the president, so he visits Federal attorney Alice Sutton (Roberts) to warn her about the plot. At first, Sutton thinks Jerry is a polite wacko, until she starts to see some of his warning signs.

Enter Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart), an urbane, bespectacled Harvard shrink who desperately wants to lay his hands on Jerry. Patrick Stewart plays Dr. Jonas with a Borg in his eye. Stewart’s commanding presence lends credence to his villainy. Jerry, it seems, participated as a Jonas experiment in mind control program along the lines of the 1960’s paranoid thriller “The Manchurian Candidate” where the Chinese brainwashed U.S. troops and turned them into assassins. Jonas tried to make Jerry into a killer, but his efforts proved futile. Somehow, somebody else grabbed Stewart’s subjects, and he has been trying to catch Jerry since to learn who stole his technology. Meanwhile, another super secret agency represented by Hatcher (Cylk Cozart) has been keeping tabs on Jerry to capture Dr. Jonas. In the middle stands federal prosecutor Alice Sutton who has just been told to stop investigating the murder of his father a federal judge. Although she reluctantly believes Jerry initially, later she comes to hate and fear him.

Director Richard Donner and Helgeland are careful to present Jerry as a mad as a March hare hero. Meanwhile, they construct Alice Sutton as the paragon of intelligence and sanity. The character that Julia Roberts plays is indispensable. She proves that Jerry is paranoid, but she realizes eventually that his paranoia is justified. “Conspiracy Theory” is really two stories woven into one. Jerry Fletcher searches as much for his own sanity as Alice Sutton does the murderers of his father. That’s the other plot. Alice Sutton’s father, a federal judge, has been murdered and she refuses to give up the investigation. Integrating these two apparently unrelated plots together into a smooth, unobtrusive way forces scenarist Helgeland and director Donner to add about a half-hour’s worth of story to the film.

Since the filmmakers dump all this convoluted narrative onto you with as little exposition as possible, you may find “Conspiracy Theory” more than a little overwhelming. “Conspiracy Theory” struggles to be “North by Northwest” with a sprinkling of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.” Although the writing falters toward the end, the uniformly excellent cast gives first-rate performances, and director Richard Donner conjures up every neat trick to promote the suspense and the excitement. Perhaps the worst thing about the story is the profusion of hush-hush secret agencies that participate in this derring do. When Donner and Helgeland run out of initials, they compare spy networks to relatives.

Since actor Mel Gibson teamed up with his favorite movie director Richard Donner, who called the shots in the exhilarating “Lethal Weapon” trilogy, he has gravitated more and more to the kind of screwball hysterics emblematic of the Warner Brothers cartoons of Bugs Bunny. Mel Gibson has probably been dying to play someone like Jerry Fletcher ever since he did his “Lethal Weapon” movies. Riggs and Fletcher share similarities. Both characters were assassins before they became either cop or cabbie. Although Fletcher qualifies as a quasi-action hero, he is also somebody prone to bouts of uncertainty. Although Gibson’s Riggs character in his “Lethal Weapon” actioneers hovered near schizophrenia, Mel’s cabbie Jerry Fletcher in “Conspiracy Theory” emerges as a full-blown schizophrenic. Jerry Fletcher experiences episodes of wise-cracking sanity and insightful clarity before the schizophrenia buried deep inside his disturbed psyche shatters his self-control and leaves him helpless and vulnerable.

Actress Julia Roberts has more to do than just stand around and look like a pretty woman in “Conspiracy Theory.” As a hard nosed Federal prosecutor, she gets to shoot guns, ride horses, and talk her way out of tight-spots with the FBI. Gibson and she develop real chemistry when they go on the run. While Jerry gets to play hero in the first part of the film, Alice Sutton gets to dominate the heroics in the second half.

John Schwartzman’s cinematography deserves special praise. The opening credit sequence with its array of neat, weird, and cool camera angles is memorable. The various Dutch-tilted camera shots in the action scenes help generate excitement. If you want to see an example of textbook perfect cinematography and matchless editing, “Conspiracy Theory” boasts both, with an upbeat, atmospheric music score by Carter Burwell.

Richard Donner has been directing television shows and motion pictures since the late 1950s. “Conspiracy Theory” is so competently made that it glides along despite its inordinate length. Donner confines the action to warm offices, dark alleys, rain swept streets, dim apartments, and musty hospital rooms. Stealth helicopters in the whisper mode cruise the skies above Gibson’s Jerry Fletcher. To emphasize the theme of reality versus illusion, Donner aims Schwartzman’s cameras on reflective surfaces. One of the best is a chopper deploying four men reflected in the window where Jerry huddles to hide his face. Helgeland and Donner keep our hero and heroine hopping from one skillet to an even larger skillet. The explosive attack on Jerry’s apartment and their escape is a cinematic tour-de-force.

Ultimately, all it boils down to is Mel Gibson. He gets to play a resourceful hero and a sympathetic victim. We are rooting for him the entire time, because there is no way Mel Gibson can be a crook. As charismatic as Gibson is as Jerry Fletcher, you cannot mistake his insouciant wit as anything other than a Bugs Bunny gesture. Now, if Mel had only uttered: “What’s Up, Doc?”

FILM REVIEW OF ''BATMAN & ROBIN" (1997)

Watching “Batman & Robin,” (** 1/2 out of ****) the fourth cinematic outing in the Warner Brothers’ franchise, is like sitting through a Broadway musical staged as a series of wrestling matches. Batman (George Clooney of “From Dusk Till Dawn”) and Robin (Chris O’Donnell of “Batman Forever) are poised in one corner of the ring on the side of justice. The time around the Boy Wonder chafes at his second banana status. He wants a super hero car and his own signal light! Batman grimaces: “That’s why Superman works alone.” Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone of “Clueless”) is the latest recruit to the Caped Crusader’s clan. Uncle Alfred’s bodacious niece, she loves to race motorcycles. Opposite our heroes and heroines in the other corner are Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger of “True Lies”), a human stalagmite dressed like a bug lamp, and the venomous botanical Botticelli-like Venus dubbed Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman of “Pulp Fiction”) whose lips carry a toxic kiss. Audiences get to ogle these overdressed fiends as they battle Batman and Robin amid several fabled settings for two hours in far-fetched situations. The combat scenes suffer from a choreographed look that detracts from the spontaneity of the fighting. Indeed, everything about “Batman & Robin” is as staged and predictable as a wrestling match.

Nevertheless, “Batman & Robin” qualifies as ideal summer fare. This surefire formula has been served up once again with a high quota of action but relatively little violence. Nobody should leave this movie warped enough to imitate any of the stunts. While surpassing “Batman Forever,” “Batman & Robin” sports few of the vicious vibes of the mean-spirited Tim Burton & Michael Keaton originals. The lively Akiva Goldsman screenplay plumbs the depths of a DC comic book. After all, who watches a Batman movies for its fine, subtle, literary features? The screenplay exists as an excuse to catapult Batman into a string of battles with his larger-than-life adversaries. Like some earlier Batman fiends, these new villains are zombies that have defied death.

Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) stomps around in a subzero cryogenic suit that resembles the RoboCop rig minus the helmet. Freeze survives on diamonds to fuel his cold suit. Meanwhile, he is cooking up a formula to cure his frozen wife of a terminal disease called McGregor’s Syndrome. Goldsman must have watched some of those British Peter Cushing movies about mad scientists and their dead wives. Interestingly, Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler Alfred (Michael Gough of “Horror Hospital”) falls victim to the same illness. If one villain were not enough, Goldsman whistles up a second, the felonious flora known as Poison Ivy who deploys her sire charms to incite rivalry between the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder. Again, the wrestling image of tag teams comes to mind for “Batman & Robin.”

Mind you, the villains are annoying but not odious. Although bald-headed, gimlet-eyed, and blue from head to toe, Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t seem very dangerous. His dialogue mixes puns about frigidity with synonyms for the word ‘cold.’ “Chill!” roars Mr. Freeze as he wields an ice gun that turns the police into icicles. Despite his insane laughter and hideous plans, Mr. Freeze never really harms anybody. The heroes manage to thaw out Freeze’s victims before they die so his villainy is strictly cosmetic.
And Poison Ivy’s is essentially no different.

“Batman & Robin” emerges more as a triumph of set design, costuming, and elaborate visual effects over narrative storytelling. The breath-taking, computer-generated baroque sets of Gotham City radiate a surreal quality that is enhanced by the cotton-candy colored fluorescence of the cinematography. Each shot in the movie resembles a panel out of a Batman comic book. Scores of Dutch-tilted MTV-style camera angles punctuate the action to heighten the tension and suspense. The special effects are so dazzling that you will find yourself overwhelmed by them.

Director Joel Schumacher succeeds admirably in keeping the plot from getting in the way of either the special efforts or the action. “Batman & Robin” is as calculated a summer commodity as brand name triple-decker hamburgers with all the fixings. That’s the kind of hamburger that people want so they keep putting the same things in them. The same applies to the “Batman” franchise. Entertaining, clever, and shrewd at every turn, “Batman & Robin” succeeds for the same reasons that other “Batman” movies faltered. The Dynamic Duo are bulletproof! Suspense doesn’t exist in this lavishly produced epic. No matter how closely death hovers over our heroes, they escape without a scratch.

Making the death-defying obstacles bigger each time helps but only prolongs the certainty that they will survive. Basically, the heroes are getting out of tight spots far too easily. Batman’s suit conceals more gadgets than James Bond’s tuxedo. Every gadget has been ingeniously contrived to get Batman out of his predicaments. Each device works without fail every time. Our heroes don’t even break a sweat, so why should we? The best way to watch “Batman & Robin” is to let the absurdities flow over you. Nevertheless, the filmmakers are shrewd. Between the high octane action sequences, a dozen allusions are made about ‘family values.’ Bruce Wayne shares a tearful moment, for example, with his bed-ridden butler Alfred. Despite its knockabout tactics, “Batman & Robin” endorses the family. ‘Family values’ play a crucial part in the narrative. Batman & Robin quarrel and compete with each other in the film. Eventually, Alfred intervenes and resolves the tensions between our heroes. When the Dynamic Duo reciprocate the trust that solidifies them as a family, they defeat their adversaries.

The best part of “Batman & Robin” is the subplot that has Alfred ailing. Aside from paunchy Pat Hingle’s Commissioner Gordon, English actor Michael Gough is the only holdover from the original Keaton “Batman.” Equipped with George Burns’ eyeglasses, Alfred furnishes the only genuine warmth in the film. Although the main plot concerns saving the world from Mr. Freeze’s ice-capades, Alfred’s imminent death weaves the path of hero and villain into a neat, slushy outcome.

George Clooney of NBC-TV’s “ER” appears well suited to wear the cape and cowl. His chin and jaw are square enough to accommodate the role. Clooney plays Bruce Wayne/Batman straight. He delivers each line of dialogue with persuasive conviction. While his Batman is neither as ruthless as Keaton’s or as suave as Kilmer’s, Clooney brings a compelling, no-nonsense virility to the role.

Schumacher provides more than enough style to get “Batman & Robin” over its alarming lack of substance. Schumacher inherited the franchise from Tim Burton who bailed after “Batman Returns.” As Hollywood movie directors rank, Schumacher boasts an impressive string of successes. He helmed “Batman Forever,” “A Time to Kill,” “Flatliners,” “The Lost Boys,” “D.C. Cab,” and “St. Elmo’s Fire.” Schumacher keeps “Batman & Robin” moving at a whirlwind pace. At two and a half hours in length, this “Batman” entry flies. He has ushered Batman away from the dark side and into the light. The worse thing that you can say about “Batman & Robin” is that it is a rough and tumble fashion show masquerading as an action movie. Nobody really gets hurt who doesn’t deserve their punishment. Although Schumacher generates a certain amount of adrenalin here and there, it is primarily about showing what the heroes and villains do rather than the consequences of their actions. Juveniles should be efficiently distracted by these antics, the obstreperous soundtrack and the heady visuals. Discriminating adults should be able to tolerate “Batman & Robin” for what it is a summer movie joyride.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE HOUR OF 13" (1952)

Although "The Hour of 13" (**1/2 out of ****)doesn't top its predecessor, this polished but minor MGM item still qualifies as an entertaining, above-average, mystery thriller with a good cast, atmospheric studio settings, and competent direction. Arguably, "The Hour of 13" ranks as one of Peter Lawford's better starring roles in his extremely uneven and spotty career as a leading man.

Released in 1952, during the notorious McCarthy era, this Harold ("Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue") French directed film looks as if it were subjected to harsher censorship than its 1934 original. Nevertheless, scenarists Howard Emit Rodgers & Leon Gordon integrate the approved social propaganda seamlessly into their screenplay about what happens when a vindictive serial killer who ices British Bobbies on the beat in cold blood crosses paths with a handsome gentlemen jewel thief in London sometime during the 1890s. The Terror, the name by which the killer is known, murders a policeman near a house where a dinner party is in progress. As it turns out, the Lawford character has just filched a valuable jewel from around a lady's neck and is in the process of making good his escape when he stumbles onto the dead bobby. Mistakenly, the police suspect that the serial killer and the jewel thief are one in the same. As Connor, a high-ranking Scotland Yard inspector, actor Roland ("Thunderball") Culver makes a tenacious adversary. When Lawford comes forward to testify that the British officer that the police have arrested could not have been the murderer, Connor suspects that the Lawford character may be the killer himself in this cat & mouse Victorian mystery-thriller. The Rodgers and Gordon dialogue is very British and wonder to listen to.

Between 1935 and 1968, the Catholic Church forced Hollywood filmmakers to alter their movies to accommodate the Legion of Decency or weather a boycott. This pressure advocacy group demanded that Hollywood show the police in a positive light and that criminals must be punished for their crimes. "The Hour of 13" does a splendid job of observing the Production Code while allowing us to sympathize with Peter Lawford's urbane jewel thief Nicholas Revel. No, I won't divulge the surprise ending, since it needs to be experienced first-hand to be enjoyed, but "The Hour of 13" should leave you satisfied. Incredibly, the police are smart for a change, though they make an occasional mistake (check out the 'switch the liquor glass' scene), and the Peter Lawford anti-hero (he does steal for a living) often finds himself in several suspenseful tight spots. When he isn't tangling with the serial killer, he is dodging the nimble-witted Connor and a number of undercover London policemen assigned to shadow his every move. Dawn Addams provides the romantic interest as the daughter of a London cop who is engaged to marry an Army officer. Initially, Scotland Yard suspected the Army officer because he was found with the dead policeman's helmet in his hands. It is interesting that the Lawford character has no love interest and that the Dawn Addams character remains devoted to her husband-to-be. Of course, when the suitor discovers that Revel and his intended have dined together often he is disturbed. The revelation of the serial killer's motives is a nice touch. The Connors character poses more of a threat to Revel than the serial killer.

Anybody who has perused any books about Frank Sinatra and the infamous Rat Pack, of which Lawford was a member until Frankie gave him the boot) or books about MGM stars will really enjoy "The Hour of 13." According to books like The Rat Pack and The Men of M-G-M, Lawford severely damaged his right arm during his youth. Reportedly, he smashed it through a French door and did more damage to it when he extracted it. Consequently, his right arm remained virtually useless, except for minor things such as shaking hands, opening & shutting doors, and holding books. He relied visibly on her left hand and often anchored his right in his pants pocket. Armed with that knowledge, you'll be able to fully savor Lawford's performance. In the long shots, in a scene set in a darkly-lit warehouse, our heroic jewel thief fights with the villain and uses his right arm. Clearly, this was a double, because Lawford could not have done this on-screen fracas because of his physical impairment. If you like inside production information, background stuff like this will elevate your appreciation of all things Lawford.

FILM REVIEW OF ''NEXT DAY AIR'' (2009)

Lurking beneath the surface of former gangsta rap video music director Benny Boom’s derivative African-American crime comedy “Next Day Air” (** out of ****) lies the not-so-subtle message that pedaling narcotics is a perilous occupation. This predictable, R-rated, 84-minute, “Pineapple Express” carbon copy about minority drug dealers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, blasting holes in each other over a lost horde of cocaine generates more bloodshed than buffoonery. Ironically, first-time scenarist Blair Cobbs has penned a melodramatic screenplay that casts its largely black and Hispanic actors in despicably stereotypical drug dealer roles.

Nobody in “Next Day Air” deserves a shred of sympathy except the protagonist’s mother. She is literally the only character that isn’t up to mischief. Worse, the producers have squandered the talents of one of the funniest black comedians alive—Mos Def—in a role so trifling that it qualifies as a cameo. Although she has been as criminally wasted in a similar minor role, it is gratifying to see Debbie Allen of “Fame” back in a big-screen film. Furthermore, funnyman Mike Epps usually makes even the worst comedy tolerably entertaining, but his presence does little to enliven “Next Day Air.”

Director Benny Boom and scenarist Blair Cobbs establish in the first ten minutes of “Next Day Air” that the misguided protagonist, Leo Jackson (Donald Faison of TV’s “Scrubs”), loves to get high on reefer. His mother, Ms. Jackson (Debbie Allen of “Fame”), calls her spoiled son on the carpet for his marijuana misadventures and threatens to fire him. Leo goes into a tantrum and pleads with her not to pink slip him. Nevertheless, the threat of being fired has little impact on him afterward because he is back to puffing pot on his delivery route in no time flat.

Meanwhile, a trio of cretinous bank robbers, Guch (Wood Harris of HBO’s “The Wire”), Brody (Mike Epps of “Resident Evil: Extinction”) and Hassie (Malik Barnhardt of “Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club”), sits around their dumpy apartment and play video games. Actually, Guch and Brody do the sitting while an oblivious Hassie sprawls out on a nearby couch. The filmmakers appeared to have modeled Hassie on the Brad Pitt slacker in “True Romance” who hung out on a sofa in his friend’s house. Recently, these low-lives attempted a bank hold-up that went hilarious awry for the silliest of excuses. Apparently, Guch told Brody to grab the loot after they entered the premises. Instead, Brody seized the video surveillance tapes. Now, they watch the bank tapes and reprimand Brody for his incompetence.

Guch and Brody reside in the same Philadelphia apartment complex near a Puerto Rican couple, Jesus (Cisco Reyes) and Chita (Yasmin Deliz), who are anxiously awaiting a shipment of ten bricks of cocaine from a Los Angeles-based, cigar-smoking drug smuggler, Bodega (Emilio Rivera), an hombre with no sense of humor. Boom and Cobbs show what happens to the thugs who try to take advantage of Bodega, and it isn’t a pretty sight. After Bodega punishes a hood from misconduct, he promotes Jesus to replace the dearly departed, and Jesus knows that his life isn’t worth a dime if anything untoward goes wrong through no fault of his own.

Naturally, Leo is getting high when he wheels in a giant box to the apartment complex and delivers it to Guch and Brody. Brody cannot believe his eyes, while Guch insists that God has answered their prayers. Brody contacts his drug pedaling cousin, Shavoo (Omari Hardwick of “Gridiron Gang”), and makes him a sales pitch. Initially, Shavoo doesn’t snap up Brody’s offer because he keeps a stash in a rental unit downtown, until he learns that somebody has stolen his narcotics from him. Shavoo decides to accommodate Brody, but he is suspicious about everybody since the burglars hit his rental unit. Meantime, Jesus phones Bodega and reports that the merchandise hasn’t arrived. Instantly, Bodega grows suspicious because he contacted Ms. Jackson’s company Next Day Air and received confirmation that the package arrived safely at its destination.

Bodega flies into Philly with his hard-faced henchman Rhino (Lobo Sebastian of “The Longest Yard”) who likes to get sadistic with Bodega’s enemies. Along with Bodega and Rhino, a desperate Jesus (Cisco Reyes) and Chita (Yasmin Deliz) set out to find Leo and clear up everything. They catch up with Leo, still inhaling pot even when he drives his delivery van and Leo realizes to his horror that he did in fact deliver the package to the wrong address. At this point, pandemonium erupts out as everybody converges on Guch’s apartment with guns drawn and itching to shoot first and ask questions later.

The best thing about “Next Day Air” is that director Boom doesn’t wear out his welcome. This movie clocks in at less than 90 minutes. On the other hand, this dud about a bunch of dimwits isn’t exactly a laugh-a-minute marathon. The finale consists of a hardcore, Quentin Tarantino-type gun battle at close quarters. Boom stages this uneven comedy as if he were aspiring to be a Guy Ritchie of “Snatch” fame. Unfortunately, the gunfire overshadows the guffaws. Next Day Air” has absolutely nothing to redeem it, and this Summit Entertainment release scrapes the bottom of the barrel for the modicum of humor that it has.

FILM REVIEW OF ''CRANK'' (2006)

Freshmen writer-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s helter-skelter cartoonish actioneer “Crank” (***1/2 out of ****)qualifies as a brutal, violent, live-action, R-rated equivalent of the Energizer bunny battery commercial with agile “Transporter” star Jason Statham displaying amazing resilience as he rants and raves across L.A. on a mission of vengeance to liquidate the villains that are trying to dispatch him. Neveldine and Taylor have penned and lensed an audaciously original, first-person style, shooter video game melodrama for the attention deficit generation. “Crank” will literally nail you to your seat with its runaway plot that updates the venerable Edmund O’Brien death-by-poisoning thriller “D.O.A.” (1950) with a nod to Jan De Bont’s “Speed” (1994) where a bus wired to blow up will remain intact as long as the driver doesn’t slow down. Nevertheless, despite its homages, “Crank” amounts to a wholly unusual exercise in ramped-up, Dutch-tilt camera angles, enlivened considerably by its maniacal meth-head editing, Atari-video game graphics, Google map search inserts, and a gallery of truly warped minority characters. From the first frame to the last, Neveldine and Taylor ignore gravity and accelerate this epic into gear-grinding, overdrive with gleeful abandon.

A free-lance professional hitman, Chev Chelios, intends to quit the paid assassin gig so he can live a peaceful life with his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart of TV’s “Smith”) who thinks that he earns his living as a video game programmer. Sadly, Chev realizes to his chagrin that he has picked the wrong day to pursue the straight and narrow. Our agile antihero awakens to discover that a vile Asian mobster has injected him with a lethal dose of synthetic ‘sci-fi’ Chinese poison. Indeed, Chev watches with incredulity on his big-screen television a DVD that nefarious Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo of “Shackles”) made for him that shows the dastard administering a hypo of the deadly toxin to him in his bedroom the previous evening. Chev brought this all on himself because he iced an Asian mobster Don Kim (Keone Young of “Dude, Where’s My Car”), but the surprise is that Chev didn’t whack Kim. Nevertheless, Ricky boasts that Chev has no more than an hour to live.

Talk about suspense! Talk about cornering the hero in a cul-de-sac! “Crank” puts our protagonist into a death-defying tight spot like no other movie has dared in a long time! After he listens to sadistic Ricky Verona issue his death sentence, Chev destroys his television in a fit of rage and leaves a message for his disreputable doctor, Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam of “Sling Blade”), to call him back for an hour elapses. Chev goes on a rampage for the remainder of the film’s testosterone-laced 88 minutes that provides a surplus of momentum and raunchy merriment for those willing to suspend their disbelief to enjoy the far-fetched frantics in store for them.

No sooner does Chev discover his predicament than he hits the road in search of Ricky. He calls his transvestite friend Kaylo (Efren Ramirez of “Napoleon Dynamite”) to put the word on the street that he is looking for Ricky. Next he storms in to see an African-American gangsta, Orlando (Reno Wilson of “Fallen”), who he believes is associated with the infamous Ricky, only to learn that Orlando is looking for Ricky himself to collect $7, 500 that the Asian owes him. Chev snorts some blow from Orlando and tears off in his car. At the Las Vegas airport, Doc Miles rings Chev up and listens to his description of the poison: “The flow of adrenalin is what’s keeping you alive,” Miles explains. “You’ve got to keep moving, Chevy,” he adds. “If I’m right, they gave you the Beijing cocktail.” Miles continues with his diagnosis. “It works on the adrenal gland, blocks its receptors. The only thing you can do to slow it down at all is to keep the flow of adrenaline constant. Meaning, if you stop, you die.” During this vital expository passage, Neveldine and Taylor don’t slow down the action. Instead, the entire conversation occurs while the L.A.P.D. chases Chevy who crashes into a shopping mall to elude them and smashes through its with reckless abandon until he slams into the escalator and bails out for a cab outside the complex. As cops swarm the mall, Chev rides off in the cab, plotting his next move. He gets the cabbie to stop at a convenience store where he pilfers a supply of energy boosting, over-the-counter medications and chugs a Red Bull.

Chev takes a plunge with another gangster, his boss Carlito (Carlos Sanz of “Backdraft”) who operates a West Coast crime syndicate, in his penthouse swimming pool and plies him with questions about Ricky Verona. “There is no antidote,” Carlito gives Chev the bad news. “Honestly, you should be dead already. It’s a miracle.” Carlito laments Chev’s hit on Don Kim. “The heat from Hong Kong has been more than we anticipated.” An unhappy Chev stomps away, commandeers the cab from the driver and receives another phone call from Doc Miles. Miles explains that the Beijing cocktail “. . . is cutting off your adrenaline. Excitement, fear, and danger, it causes you body to manufacture chemicals called ephedrine. Now, what these guys have done is introduce an inhibitor to his your system. Dude, your only chance is to massively increase the level of ephedrine in your body to force out the inhibitors.”

The funniest scene follows with our anti-hero terrorizing a hospital for anything to keep his heart pumping at ninety to nothing. Initially, a pharmacist won’t give Chev any epinephrine and alerts hospital security. While this is transpiring a bystander informs him to that nasal spray, which contains epinephrine will "tweak” him. Security pursues Chev through the hospital. He changes into a hospital gown and at gun point forces an EMT to jolt him with a defibrillator. Eventually, Chev kills Ricky’s brother by chopping off the thug’s fist with a meat cleaver and then using the guy’s own gun, still encased in his fist to blow his head to smithereens like a burst watermelon. Now, Chev has to keep his girlfriend Eve out of harm’s way and kill Ricky. He catches up with her about forty minutes into the action and confides to her in a Chinese restaurant that he wants to quit the business so he can be with her. He explains that he was supposed to kill the Triad's number one man, Don Kim, but he let Kim live as long as Kim cleared out of L.A. for 48 hours. At first, Eve refuses to believe him. She walks out on him and he follows her into a public place and booty bangs her in front of a crowd of on-lookers. Half-way into sex with Eve, Chev receives a phone call from Kaylo. Kaylo has found Ricky Verona and Chev pulls out of Eve and heads off to join Kaylo. Predictably, Eve is embarrassed when she realizes the spectacle that she presented to the scores of bystanders.

Chev catches a ride in another cab with yet another ethnic type and tastes some crazy stuff that is supposed to make him like the devil. When he arrives at the rendezvous to take out Verona, Chev gets a queasy feeling. Instead of riding the elevator up to the third floor, he sneaks up to the roof, catches one of Don Carlos Carlito's thugs and throws him off the building. Chev learns that Don Carlos has killed Keylo, strangling and suffocating him simultaneously, and Don Carlos' henchmen advise Chev to find a quiet dark place and die. They will deal with Ricky Verona, but for the time being Chev has become such a media figure with his antics, especially running around in a hospital gown with a steel hard-on that Carlito simply wants him to disappear. About that time, Eve walks into the building and Chev opens up on the Mexicans, blasting away at them while he grabs Eve and they make their escape. After they clear the building, Eve explains that she had to find out if Chev had told the truth about being a hit man.

Doc Miles equips Chev with an insulin pump to feed his body the ephedrine and he goes to visit Don Carlos and finds Ricky Verona with him. Don Carlos prepares to give Chev another injection when out of nowhere appears Don Kim and his goon squad. Another gunfight erupts. Ricky jumps onto Don Carlos' helicopter, but Chev leaps on board, too. Over Los Angeles the slug it out in the chopper. Ricky and Chev topple out of the helicopter and "Crank" concludes with Chev's falling body.

“Crank” amounts to the most jacked-up joyride of all cinematic joyrides. Jason Statham was born to play Chev Chelios and Amy Smart is ideal as his dumb, blond girlfriend. Hust when you think that the plot is set in concrete, something different happens and changes everything. “Crank” features a plethora of bloody violence, profane language (as many as 115 f-words), low-life sexuality, and rampant drug abuse. Virtually the entire cast reprised their roles in the superior sequel.

FILM REVIEW OF ''GANG RELATED'' (1997)

Everything that can go wrong does go wrong for a couple of corrupt homicide cops in “Disorganized Crime” director Jim Kouf’s “Gang Related,” (*** out of ****) an ensemble police procedural thriller that springs one startling surprise after another on its unsuspecting audience. This above-average but unsavory chronicle of a crime coming unraveled boasts a talented cast in a heavyweight tragicomedy of errors. What elevates “Gang Related” several notches above the ordinary gangsta epic is the film’s old-fashioned portrayal of good and evil in a morally ordered universe where everybody must atone for their sins. The filmmakers have borrowed elements as diverse as O’Henry’s classic comeuppance storytelling style and combined it with bits and pieces from big-budgeted movies such as William Friedkin’s “To Live and Die in L.A.” (1985) and Joseph Ruben’s “Money Train” (1995). Indeed, Kouf’s accomplished piece of filmmaking looks like the flip side of Peter Hyams’ buddy cop movie “Running Scared” with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines, although the cops that Crystal and Hines played were good guys to the core.

The characters in “Gang Related” serve as the pawns of a serpentine plot. None of them exert control over what transpires and the irony of this isn’t lost on audiences. Few ensemble movies reach the big screen anymore, so this proves both surprising and gratifying to see such a polished effort like this one. Writer & director Jim Kouf produced a similar saga with his 1989 crime spoof “Disorganized Crime.” Everything went awry for a gang of thieves in “Disorganized Crime.” In “Gang Related,” everything goes awry, too, but for the police. The chief difference is that Kouf plays it straight right down the line. Although the parable teeters at times on travesty, Kouf never shifts the accent to buffoonery. You know something is different, too, when a couple marquee stars shows up in minor of crucial roles. You can barely recognize Dennis Quaid at first as a remorseful derelict and James Earl Jones’s arrival occurs straight out of the blue.

As Detective Frank DaVinci and Rodriguez, James Belushi and Tupac Shakur create a credibly chummy chemistry. Arguing that drug dealers constitute the scum of society, they set them up for buys, knock them off, and then attribute the murders to gangs. According to DaVinci, "Drug dealers don't qualify as people. Never did, never will." DaVinci and Rodriguez have iced nine drug dealers with this reliable method of operation, using narcotics secretly liberated then later returned to the police evidence room. DaVinci and Rodriguez get the shock of their lives when they learn that their latest victim, Lionel Hudd (Kool Moe Dee of “Panther”), was an undercover D.E.A. agent. Moreover, Hudd’s superior, Agent Richard Simms (Gary Cole), is determined to do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of Hudd’s murder and applies a lot of heat on the L.A.P.D. to find a suspect. Neither detective wants to confess to the crime so they search for a patsy. Several patsies don’t pan out because they have iron-clad alibis, but this doesn’t stop our unscrupulous protagonists from trying to set them up. They bring them into an interrogation room and slide the murder weapon across the desk at them and these poor fools catch the gun and wind up handling. One examines the revolver in detail and then cleverly wipes it clean and sends it sliding back at the cops. Eventually, DaVinci settles on a street bum. No sooner has Joe Doe (Dennis Quaid of “The Rookie”) been arrested than it turns out that he is a rich man thought dead for seven years. It seems that William Daine McCall, son of the founder of a major telecommunication corporation, was a celebrated surgeon who stepped out on his wife with a nurse. An argument between McCall and his wife prompted her to fly into hysterics, enough so to take their two kids and leave their home. Tragically, about a mile from home, the wife and children died in a car accident and McCall goes on a bender. Meanwhile, things keep getting worse for our protagonists. They enlist the aid of a stripper named Cynthia Webb (Lela Rochon of “Waiting to Exhale”) as an eyewitness. It seems that DaVinci is banging her on the side when he is sleeping with his wife. Cynthia buckles in court, however, when defense attorney Arthur Baylor (James Earl Jones of “Clean Slate”) tears up her contrived story under careful cross-examination, and she admits to perjury. Pretty soon the relationship between DaVinci and Rodriguez begins to deteriorate because Rodriguez lacks DaVinci’s cold, calculating nerve to kill people without a qualm.

James Belushi of “Mr. Destiny” plays an out-and-out villain here in a change-of-pace casting. He invests his character with more depth than you would normally associate with him. At times, his performance is so charismatic that you want evil to triumph. In his final screen appearance, the late rapper Tupac Shakur shows that his artistry will be missed as much by music enthusiasts as moviegoers.

Writer & director Jim Kouf has breathed new life into a routine plot by standing it on its head. Half of the fun of “Gang Related” is watching DaVinci and Rodriguez dig themselves deeper the more that they try to dig themselves out of disaster. Usually, in a movie like “Gang Related,” the heroes are the guys who are in trouble, but neither DaVinci nor Rodriguez qualify as heroes. They only character with any shred of integrity here is Cynthia. When she commits perjury, she refuses to divulge the identities of her cohorts. That’s what makes Kouf’s police thriller different and that difference might alienate orthodox crime movie junkies who need a hero to cheer. The ending is absolutely terrific!

FILM REVIEW OF ''PANIC ROOM" (2002)

David Fincher has fashioned some first-rate films since he started directing movies back in 1992. The Colorado native called the shots on “Se7en” (1995), a gripping serial killer saga starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as the cops and Kevin Stacey as the villain, that disturbed as much as it enthralled audiences. He toyed mischievously with audiences in “The Game” (1997) toplining Michael Douglas and Sean Penn in the tradition of George Roy Hill’s Oscar-winning Best Picture “The Sting.” The incomparable and offbeat “Fight Club” (1999) qualified hands down as Fincher’s finest, reuniting him with Brad Pitt and co-starring Edward Norton in a pre-terrorist 9/11 opus. Until he made the Jodie Foster crime film “Panic Room” (*1/2 out of ****), “Alien 3” ranked as Fincher’s least distinguished epic, with a shaven-headed Sigourney Weaver impersonating science officer Ripley for the last time as a flesh & blood human being. Comparatively, as the least commercial entry in the creature-feature franchise, the anemic “Alien 3” induced sleep rather than suspense. No matter how atrocious “Alien 3” seemed, “Panic Room” weighs in as infinitely worse. Only deep-fried Jodie Foster fans will savor this superficial, occasionally sadistic exercise in futility. Actually, the producers cast Nicole Kidman, but she injured herself and pulled out. A hopelessly miscast Jodie Foster brings a certain elegance to this unexceptional nail-biter. Indeed, lensers Conrad Hall and Darius Khondji’s atmospheric cinematography, the eerie lighting, and the looming interiors win “Panic Room” brownie points, not nearly enough.

This inferior feminist fable takes its title from a 12 by 12 foot, steel-plated, concrete bunker inside a four-story Brownstone in Upper West Side Manhattan. The reclusive tycoon who owned it has died, and our divorced heroine, Meg Altman (a bespectacled Jodie Foster) and her diabetic daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart of “Twilight”) now occupy the place. Plagued by paranoia, the late millionaire equipped the townhouse with a secret room. This impregnable bomb shelter boasts a high tech surveillance system with a cameras that scan the premises 24 hours a day from every angle inside and outside. The chamber contains its own ventilation system and features a separate telephone line. During the first night that Meg and Sarah sleep in their new beds, they awaken to find themselves at the mercy of three harebrained hoodlums out to steal millions of dollars worth of bearer bonds that the dead financier concealed in a vault in the safe room.

Predictably, Meg and Sarah hole up in the bunker while Junior (Jared Leto of “Girl, Interrupted”), Burnham (Forrest Whitaker of “Bird”), and Raoul (country singer Dwight Yoakam of “Sling Blade”) toil incompetently to evict them. Aside from their vulnerability as females-at-risk with flaws—Meg suffers from claustrophobia, while Sarah requires insulin shots)—these females do little to appeal to our sympathy. Ironically, Whitaker’s character emerges as not only the most sympathetic but also the most interesting. Poor Patrick Bauchau of “A View to a Kill” plays Meg’s millionaire, ex-husband (no relation to the deceased tycoon) and takes a hellacious beating from Raoul in a scene which will undoubtedly sicken some viewers.

This tedious, third-rate tale unravels from the outset with a premise as contrived as it convoluted plot. What veteran scenarist David Koepp of “Stir of Echoes” fame doesn’t steal from his own scripts, he appropriates from the durable Audrey Hepburn thriller “Wait Until Dark” (1967) and the exciting Sean Connery caper “The Anderson Tapes” (1972). The Raoul character clearly recalls the Mafia thug in “Anderson Tapes” that veteran character actor Val Avery played in a ski-mask with a penchant for violence. The ending that disposes of the bearer bonds comes straight out of John Huston’s “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948). Had the “Panic Room” been a tenth as entertaining as any of those classics, this derivative mishmash with its unintentionally hilarious histrionics might have proven tolerable. Instead, “Panic Room” resembles a heavy-handed Lifetime channel version of “Home Alone.” Decked out in a black, tank-top to display cleavage, Jodie Foster imitates the antics of Macaulay Culkin as she battles a trio of bungling burglars. These clueless cretins make the Three Stooges appear like intellectual titans. Foster is a top-flight actress who shouldn’t have stooped to this one-dimensional nonsense. Koepp’s script bristles with inconsistencies. After making a big deal about Meg’s claustrophobia early in the film, Fincher and Koepp unaccountably drop it from the plot when they tighten the screws on our protagonists. The scene with the butane gas tank elicits derision more than dread, and the flashlight batteries in another scene were clearly of the Eveready variety.

Don’t get trapped in the “Panic Room.”

FILM REVIEW OF "FUTURE FORCE" (1989)

“Future Force” (*1/2 stars out of ****) qualifies as a cheesy, predictable, low-budget action crime saga that delivers no surprises and looks more like a modern-day, urban western rather than a futuristic tale about justice in Los Angeles. “Kill Bill” star David Carradine served as the associate producer so there is mystery as to why he appears in this tongue-in-cheek thriller, but the wonderful Robert Tessier of “The Longest Yard” provides the film with a few moments of fun. “Future Force” contains a modicum of nudity, and strippers chiefly furnish those fleeting moments in a bar named the DMZ where unsavory gun-totting civilian cops hang out between jobs. The special effects are really awful, with superimposed blue lines that spread like a spider web over whatever and laser beams that are straight blue lights. The biggest thing in his thriller occurs when a guy fires a LAWS rocket at a police helicopter and it vanishes in an explosion. The dialogue is forgettable, but “Jungle Assault” director David A. Prior keeps the mindless mayhem moving fast enough and shows a few interesting camera movements so “Future Force” doesn’t stall out.

The action unfolds with some lengthy exposition that sets up the world of “Future Force.” According to the narrator: “In the year 1991, crime in America was out of control. Prisons were overloaded. Police forces were understaffed. Gun battles in city streets became common place. No one was safe. The cities had become the battlefields of the future and the criminals were winning the war. The public demanded change and the government responded. Police departments across the country were shut down, and law enforcement was handed over to private enterprise. Civilian Operated Police Systems, Incorporated., took over. Within two years crime was under control. The price, however, was a heavy one. For justice as we once knew it had ceased to exist.”

Former L.A.P.D. officer John Tucker (a paunchy David Carradine) is one of the best in the business. He has acquired a bad reputation for not bringing in any prisoners alive. The Miranda-style statement that he utters to each lawbreaker is amusing. “You’ve committed a crime. You’re presumed guilty until proven innocent. You have the right to die. You choose to relinquish that right you’ll be placed under arrest and put in prison.” In his first encounter of many with a suspect, Tucker guns him down old West style in a fast draw showdown. The two other creeps that were with the suspect attack Tucker. He punches one in the balls and uses the club that they attacked him with to smash the other guy’s face. When these two try to escape, Tucker wields a huge bionic glove that he wears over his hand and forearm to stop them from fleeing the scene in their car. The power of this bionic glove is such that he can plant it onto the roof of the car and hold it in place when the driver floors the accelerator and the tires spin. When Tucke releases the car to check his computer in his Cherokee Chief truck, the felons try to run him down and Tucker uses the laser built into the glove to flip the car. When he learns from his computer whiz go-between, Billy that the two guys in the wrecked car were guilty only of parking tickets, Tucker shrugs and observes that they are going to be charged probably with another parking violation.

Tucker has an onboard computer in his truck and the computer nerd (D.C. Douglas) who keeps him posted with updates about new criminals and is confined to a wheelchair. Tucker accidentally shot him when Billy was a six-year old and Tucker and his partner responded to a crime call at the kid’s residence. Meanwhile, Jason Adams (William Zipp of “Operation Warzone”) is the Chief Executive Officer in Charge and he doesn’t have a qualm about killing people. The first time that we see him he has a rival tied up in a junk car. The rival begs Adams to let him go, but Adams sends him off to a car crushing machine to do a “Goldfinger” number on the guy. Becker (Robert Tessier of “The Longest Yard”) serves as Adams’ chief of security and he accompanies Adams anywhere. Adams is as corrupt as they come. He tries to get fifty percent of a mobster’s action, but the mobster, Grimes (Patrick Culliton of “Armed Response”), refuses to pay him. Eventually, the greedy Adams finds himself in a predicament when the Channel 3 News anchor girl, Marion Sims (Anna Rapagna of “The A-Team”), promises her viewers that she will feature an expose on Adams that concerns his illegal activities. An angry Adams has Becker put out an arrest warrant on Sims, but Billy intercepts it and channels it to Tucker and Tucker picks her up and tries to bring her in. Adams sends out other men to get the anchorwoman and Tucker guns down them. Adams has a warrant issued for Tucker and our hero finds himself on the run, too.

The best scene in “Future Force” involves Tucker’s use of the forearm glove. Just as Becker is about to shoot him, Tucker produces the remote control unit for the glove that he has refused to use and punches it up. The hatch of his Cherokee Chief flies up, the mechanical snap locks on the case pop open, and the bionic glove flies through the air and clamps onto Becker’s neck.

The screenplay by creator Thomas Baldwin and co-scenarist Prior is not without holes. After Adams calls criminal boss Grimes in for a conference and demands a 50 percent cut, we don’t see Grimes again until he shoots down a helicopter menacing our heroes. The irony about Sims is that she only reads the news copy.
Everything about this thriller is strictly routine, though Prior does handle some scene with a minimum of flair. A far better sequel “Future Zone” ensued in 1991 with Carradine reprising his heroic role as John Tucker, but Gail Jensen took over the role of Marion Sims that Anna Papagna had created. Patrick Culliton played another crime boss, but this time his name was Hoffman.

FILM REVIEW OF ''WATCHMEN'' (2009)

Anybody who has read Alan Moore’s grim but ground-breaking graphic novel “Watchmen” should enjoy the R-rated, 161-minute, Warner Brothers/Paramount Studios’ big-screen adaptation. “Dawn of the Dead” director Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” (**** out of ****) ranks as the best costumed crime fighters movie of all time. Think of it as the “Gone with the Wind” of superhero sagas. “Watchmen” makes both “The Dark Knight” and “Batman Begins” look like adolescent fantasies. The crime busters of “Watchmen” aren’t role models, and the novel and the film both emerge as hopelessly cynical with cosmic irony galore. Scenarists David (“X-Men” & “X-Men 2”) Hayter and newcomer Alex Tse have retained about 90 percent of Moore’s novel, but Moore refused to let the studios plaster his name on the movie. Presumably, Moore hasn’t recovered from the blasphemous Sean Connery movie “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” that left a bad taste in his mouth.

This exciting epic about a faction of superheroes based in New York City who come out of retirement (call it the dark flipside of “The Incredibles”) to save the world from itself qualifies as an elaborate exercise in cutting-edge computer-generated visuals and high-octane, adrenaline-laced heroics. Parents who take their children to see “Watchmen” ought to be reported to the Department of Human Services. Although the violence isn’t gratuitous, “Watchmen” features scenes of acute brutality and carnage. An unsavory superhero guns down a pregnant Vietnamese woman with extreme prejudice after she slashes his face with a broken beer bottle. In another scene, a prison inmate brandishes a portable, electric circular saw and mistakenly cuts off another inmate’s forearms. At least two characters are atomized into a splatter of bloody entrails, and a kidnapper dies from a meat cleaver slammed repeatedly into his skull. Violence is one aspect of “Watchmen,” while nudity is quite another. “Watchmen” is undoubtedly the first mainstream Hollywood movie that presents full frontal male nudity, too. The only genuine superhero, Dr. Manhattan, parades around more often than not in his birthday suit, looking like Obsession cologne product placement. There is probably a message in all this nudity, but I’ll leave that to your imagination.

The far-fetched action unfolds one dark, gloomy night with one of these crime fighters, Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan of “Grey’s Anatomy”), swaps blows with an assailant who has invaded his high-rise apartment. In an amusing reference to his last movie, director Zach Snyder has designated 300 as the number of Comedian’s apartment. The assailant beats Comedian to a pulp and then propels him through a plate-glass window without a qualm. Comedian plunges many stories to the street below and splatters in a bloody pile of limbs and legs. Comedian’s yellow smiley face badge lands in his spreading pool of blood. Naturally, the N.Y.P.D. doesn’t have a clue. One of Comedian’s fellow crime fighters, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Halley of the 1976 “Bad News Bears”), launches his own investigation. Rorschach warns the rest of his cohorts, Night Owl 2 (Patrick Wilson of “Lakeview Terrace”), Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup of “Almost Famous”), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode of “Match Point”), and Silk Spectre 2 (Valerie Perrine lookalike Malin Akerman of “27 Dresses”) that somebody is out to slaughter them. Unless you’ve perused Moore’s novel, you’ll never solve the mystery.

For the record, Night Owl 2 is the equivalent of Batman, without a Robin, who flies around in a stealth fighter that resembles an electric shaver. Silk Spectre 2 is a butt kicking Wonder Woman clone. She doesn’t need a man to hold her hand, especially when she helps liberate one of her own during a prison break with convicts lining up to smudge her make-up with fists and feet. Rorschach is a pint-sized Humphrey Bogart type who wears a stocking over his face with an ink blot pattern that shifts. He is an uncompromising crime buster who sees life in terms of good and evil with no shades of gray. Ozymandias is the smartest man in the world with a flair for public relations. He has the ability to move around as rapidly as Ricochet Rabbit. Dr. Manhattan is a tall, blue, bald, blank-eyed muscular male who wears eye-liner and mascara, hates wearing clothing and can atomize anything with a thought. Again, Dr. Manhattan is the only superhero in the Watchmen group. Dr. Manhattan’s real-life companions can survive the worst anybody can dish out with no ill effects.

DC Comics published Moore’s graphic, twelve-chapter novel in 1986 and 1987. Currently, DC has released a 5-hour plus motion comic book version of “Watchmen” on DVD that contains more than Hayter and Tse condensed into their complex screenplay. Like the novel, the theatrical “Watchmen” takes place back in 1985. Essentially, “Watchmen” is a science-fiction saga about an alternate version of America. Snyder’s movie condenses over twenty years of costumed crime fighter history during the opening credits. Indeed, “Watchmen” combines elements of “Forrest Gump” and every Oliver Stone movie since “Platoon.” President John Kennedy shakes hands with Dr. Manhattan, while President Richard Nixon exploits Dr. Manhattan as a nuclear deterrent. The story includes JFK’s assassination in Dallas, Texas, with a clear view of his assassin. In the time altered universe of “Watchmen,” America wins the Vietnam War largely through Dr. Manhattan’s intervention.

In the beginning, Dr. Manhattan was ordinary Jewish physicist Jonathan Osterman. He died tragically during an accident at a top-secret, government research lab that disintegrated his body. He manages to reconstitute himself and emerges as America’s chief weapon against the Soviet Union. Nixon dispatches Dr. Manhattan to Vietnam with Comedian, and Dr. Manhattan wins the war. Indeed, Dr. Manhattan is the only genuine super hero with super powers while everybody else is human but very resilient. Despite victory in Vietnam, America still wallows in domestic turmoil that degenerates into chaos and street violence. Hippies plant flowers in the rifle barrels of military policemen who massacre them. The police go on strike and eventually Nixon passes legislation that outlaws vigilante-minded costume clad crime fighters that aren’t employed by the government. Interestingly, the clock that showed the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States is referred to as the Doomsday Clock, a neat concept considering the constant tension between the Soviets and the Americans during the Cold War.
Later, under the Keene Act, Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian are the only costume clad crime fighters who are licensed to perform heroic feats.

Basically, the “Watchmen” plot defies synopsis. Like Moore’s novel, the story boasts enough material for an entire film franchise, but “Watchmen” does an excellent job of bringing all the action together in less than three hours to create a coherent but outlandish parable of an alternate future. The idea that victory in Vietnam would not have made a difference in the American Dream is fairly audacious for any movie. Moreover, Snyder and his scenarists take the concept of vigilante heroes farther than even “The Dark Knight” dared and meditates on the ultimate contradictions involved with these costume clad crime fighters. Furthermore, not all of the Watchmen survive; the Comedian & Rorschach bite the dust. Not only does the Comedian deserve his fate because he raped Sally Jupiter, but he also killed a Vietnamese woman pregnant with his child. The Comedian acquires his scar because of Vietnamese woman. You won’t find stuff like this in any super hero movie. The 9/11 finale with its surprise ending is a mind-blower that will leave you reeling. Like “Forrest Gump,” “Watchmen” inserts several landmark rock songs to underline its multiple messages. “Watchmen” lacks a happy ending and the problems that humanity faces here aren’t simple.

FILM REVIEW OF ''TAKEN'' (2009)

The new Liam Neeson kidnap thriller "Taken" (*** out of ****) qualifies as both entertaining and predictable. Ostensibly, the message here is parents should think twice before they turn their fun-loving, 17-year old daughters loose in Paris, France, without an escort. "District B-13" director Pierre Morel appropriates many of the clichés and conventions of kidnapping thrillers, but he ramps up the violence marginally for this PG-13 thriller while suspending any vestige of realism. The result is an exciting and suspenseful yarn about a "Rambo" style father who takes names and kicks butt.

Although it doesn't concern ransom demands, "Taken" resembles the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger kidnap thriller "Commando." However, "Taken" isn't half as good as the Schwarzenegger saga. Mind you, Neeson's sympathetic performance as a doting, never-say-die dad in pursuit of the evildoers who abducted his only daughter keeps things interesting. The villains in the formulaic screenplay by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen, who together wrote both "The Transporter" and "Kiss of the Dragon," are as sleazy as maggots. The problem is no one single actor or character emerges who can match Neeson blow for blow. Big dumb action thrillers need a chief villain that we can genuinely loathe and that the hero can lock horns with in a struggle to the death. "Taken" assembles too many trigger-happy miscreants that Neeson dispatches as easily as ten-pins in a bowling alley.

"Taken" finds former CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson of "Schindler's List") living in Los Angeles so he can be near his estranged daughter Kim (Maggie Grace of TV's "Lost") who lives with her mother, Lenore (Famke Janssen of "GoldenEye"), and Stuart (Xander Berkeley of "Air Force One")her affluent stepfather. Lenore and Bryan were divorced years ago because Bryan's job as a 'preventer' for Langley kept him from spending quality time not only with Kim but also her mother. Lenore has nothing but contempt for Bryan and does her best to keep him at arm's length from Kim. Indeed, Bryan lost his job with 'the Company' because he flew 9-thousand miles to celebrate Kim’s birthday while he was on duty elsewhere in the world.

Morel and his scenarists stress Bryan's deep love for his daughter. They show him pasting Kim’s new photos into a scrapbook that contains pictures from each birthday. Bryan finds himself out-classed by Stuart at Kim's 17th birthday party when he gives her a karaoke player while Stuart gives her a horse. Kim still loves Bryan, but she is growing up and a girl has to do what a girl has to do, especially when her best friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy of "Black Christmas") persuades her to fly with her to Paris to stay with her relatives. Before Kim can accompany Amanda, she has to get Bryan's written authorization, but our hero doesn't like the set-up. He worries about what could happen to them, even though Kim assures him that they will only be touring museums. Reluctantly, Bryan breaks down and signs the form, but he demands that Kim take an international cell phone with his number programmed into it.

No sooner have the girls landed than Amanda gets the 'hots' for a Parisian pretty boy named Peter (Nicolas Giraud of "Second Soufflé") who shares a taxi with them. In this respect, "Taken" recalls the R-rated "Hostel" where sexy girls lured lusty lads into a death trap in Eastern Europe. Peter invites them to a party, but the girls never make it. Peter phones a gang of grimy Albanians that operate a white slavery ring. In other words, they shanghai young girls, pump them full of narcotics, and force them into prostitution. Kim is on the phone with Bryan when the villains invade the apartment where Amanda's relatives live. Unfortunately, Amanda's relatives are gone on a vacation, too. Bryan coaches Kim about what to do even as the thugs come after her and drag her screaming out from under a bed.

Predictably, Lenore is distraught when she learns what has happened. Bryan's CIA buddies provide our hero with a wealth of information about the Albanians. They inform Bryan, however, that he has only 96 hours before he will lose Kim forever. Essentially, Kim will be sold to the highest bidder and be a sex slave until she dies. Bryan has Stuart arrange air passage for him to Paris, and our hero pulls out his black bag of tricks. Bryan contacts an old colleague with French intelligence, Jean-Claude (Olivier Rabourdin of "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc"), but he wants Bryan to leave the country. Bryan warns his old friend that he is prepared to tear down the Eiffel Tower to get his daughter back. Secretly, Jean-Claude assigns a team to shadow Bryan. Eventually, Bryan locates the Albanians and inflicts heavy losses on them, but cannot find Kim. Bryan manages to rescue a girl who may know of Kim's whereabouts. He helps her recover from the drugs that the villains have injected in her, and she gives Bryan a lead.

Ten years ago Harrison Ford would probably have played Liam Neeson's part. Meanwhile, Neeson behaves believably enough to convince us that he is as a savvy as Matt Damon's Jason Bourne and can get into and out of the toughest predicaments imaginable. Bryan shoots, stabs, kills, fights, and tortures the treacherous Albanians until he gets what he wants. Indeed, Neeson resembles an indestructible Steven Seagal hero who can triumph over well-nigh impossible odds. Famke Janssen is relegated to the thankless role of the distraught mother, and Maggie Grace is hopelessly clueless as Kim. The Parisian locales look gritty enough, and our hero has his hands full the whole time, right up to the final showdown on a sheik's yacht.

Despite its paucity of realism and reliance on clichés, "Taken" benefits from Neeson's stalwart performance and Morel's vigorous staging of the action that never loses its momentum throughout its nimble 93 minutes.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE NEGOTIATOR" (1998)

Summer movies usually lack the sophistication and subtlety of "Set It Off" director F. Gary Gray's "The Negotiator," (*** out of ****)a taut, suspenseful, white-knuckled police thriller that pits "Pulp Fiction's" Samuel L. Jackson against "The Usual Suspects'" Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey. Incredibly, the brain and brawn in Kevin Fox & James DeMonaco's screenplay is evenly matched so that "The Negotiator" scores solidly as an above-average, good cops versus bad cops account of law and order. Nobody in "The Negotiator" does anything that the average human couldn't survive without the services of an agile stunt double. You won't find the kind of outlandish heroics here that occur ostentatiously enough in the "Die Hard" franchise. Indeed, "The Negotiator" stands out as one of the summer's more down-to-earth entries. Actual characters find themselves in plausible situations where they must compete in a deadly contest of wits and wills. Dialogue does matter in "The Negotiator." Nevertheless, despite its onslaught of pyrotechnics at appropriate intervals, "The Negotiator" manages to thrill and entertain without venturing too far out on a limb.

"The Negotiator" focuses on police corruption among a tightly knit coterie of Chicago's finest. Really helpful is the fact that "The Negotiator" originated from an authentic case involving the St. Louis Police. Co-scripted by Fox and DeMonaco (who wrote the Robin Williams fantasy "Jack"), this tense actioneer deals with a falsely accused cop. "The Negotiator" belongs to the police genre where the hero-in-blue must take the law into his own hands to prove his innocence. While "The Negotiator" staunchly adheres to the crime formula, with its shoot-outs constantly interrupting the plot to enliven it, the film boasts enough star charisma and surprises to boost it far above the standard-issue police thriller. Moreover, "The Negotiator" features a line-up of well-versed thespians.

Ace hostage negotiator Danny Roman (Samuel L. Jackson) wakes up one morning and finds himself charged not only with embezzling police pension funds but also for murdering Nathan Roenick (an unbilled Paul Guilfoyle of "Primary Colors") his long-time partner. The filmmakers deserve praise for getting the story off to an early start. Gray and his scenarists provide some informative dialogue about police negotiations and their methods. The lecture on eye language and lying is particularly illuminating and guaranteed to bolster any conversation. Stunned by these accusations, Danny hands in his shield at the request of Chief Al Travis (John Spencer of "The Rock"), his suspicious superior. Once again, Spencer plays a character with villainous shades. Danny's partner's widow curses Danny to his face and Danny's attorney advises his client to cut a deal.

In short, everybody but Danny's newly wed wife, Karen (Regina Taylor of "Lean on Me"), believes that he is guilty as sin. Investigators at Danny's house produce bank accounts of funds invested in off-shore bank accounts. Things look terrible for our hero, but Danny is innocent and we know it. Clearly, someone is trying to frame him. The dramatic tension that fuels "The Negotiator" concerns who is guilty and can Danny survive long enough to prove it. At this point, predictability sets into the Fox & DeMonaco screenplay. All the usual police thriller elements remain intact. No sooner has the heroic cop's pal confided in him about a police conspiracy than he catches lead, and Roman finds himself isolated. Another element of the police movie genre is how a saint like Danny Roman can fall so swiftly.

Refusing to cave in to a neat frame-up, Danny demands to face his accuser, portly Internal Affairs investigator Terrence Niebaum (J.T. Walsh of "Tequila Sunrise"). When a feisty Niebaum repudiates Danny, the outraged Roman takes him hostage, along with Niebaum's secretary, Maggie (Siobahn Fallon of "Krippendorf's Tribe"), and a pasty-faced informer, Rudy (Paul Giamatti of "Saving Private Ryan"), on the 20th floor of the Chicago Internal Affairs Division Headquarters. Chaos erupts. Chief Travis (John Spencer), Commander Adam Beck (David Morse of "The Rock") and Commander Frost (Ron Rifkin of "L.A. Confidential") besiege the building with an army of trigger-happy SWAT cops. David Morse joins the gallery of villains in "The Negotiator." As Commander Beck, Morse joins the gallery of villains in "The Negotiator." He makes quite an impression with is steely eyes and stern manner. Since he has figured out that one or more of his buddies have set him up, Danny demands an outside negotiator.

Enter Lieutenant Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey), another of Chicago's crack hostage negotiators. Sabian boasts that he has never killed a hostage taker in all his years on the force. Before Sabian confronts Roman, the filmmakers have a little fun with his character. Apparently, Sabian's insubordinate daughter said something that hurt her mother's feelings, and Chris has to talk her out of the bedroom when he receives his call from Travis. The irony (that Sabian cannot get his own wife and daughter to mind him) enriches the storyline when Chris finds himself caught up between Danny and an army of cops that prefer to dispense with questions and shoot first.

At two hours and twenty minutes, "The Negotiator" is a quarter hour too long. Gray could have trimmed twenty minutes without endangering the suspense. Happily, "The Negotiator" gets off to a fast start. The idea of bottling them up in a skyscraper while Danny tries to break Niebaum's resolve qualifies as good stuff. Sadly, the filmmakers come up short. Often the plot stalls out. A big problem with "The Negotiator" is that the filmmakers keep us in the dark about who the villains are. Gray doesn't give up many clues about who they are and deploys some choice red herrings. Basically, we never get to know Danny Roman's friends so that we can guess the identity of his betrayers. Indeed, "The Negotiator" will make you furrow your brows with its plethora of detail. Burn the story about "Shane" into your brain cells if you really want to appreciate the plot. Unquestionably, with "The Negotiator," Gray establishes himself as a helmer of big-action melodramas.