FILM REVIEW OF "GUTSHOT STRAIGHT" (2014)

"CSI" regular George Eads plays a snake-bitten Las Vegas gambler with a knack for getting himself knee-deep in trouble in "Gutshot Straight" (* OUT OF ****) named Jack. Eads makes a convincing but hopeless nobody, and he looks nothing like the sympathetic crime scene investigator that he portrays on the CBS-TV television series. Instead, he portrays the kind of character who you'd neither want to meet nor hang out with because he is a loser. Happily, "Death and Cremation" director Justin Steele surrounds him with a veteran cast of familiar tough-guys, including Stephen Lang, Vinnie Jones, Steven Seagal, and Ted Levine, that give the action a modicum of substance. Steele imbues this brooding 85-minute melodrama about a charismatic loser with a creepy, mysterious film noir flavor.

Down and out, owing just about everybody in Sin City, Jack (George Eads) runs into an older guy, Duffy (Stephen Lang of “Avatar”), at a strip club who makes him an appetitizing proposition: "How'd you like to make some dollars, enough dollars to keep you at the adult table for a long, long time." Naturally, our misbegotten protagonist could use plenty of dough. Taking Jack home to his palatial residence, Duffy tries to persuade him to make love with his wife, May (AnnaLynne McCord of "The Transporter 2"), but the scrupulous Jack displays considerable reluctance. Apparently, Jack doesn't like being told what to do. A brief physical struggle ensues between Jack and Duffy while May watches from the pool. During the fracas, Jack shoves Duffy, and Duffy's head strikes an object and the impact kills him. Jack didn't plan to murder Duffy, and he is pretty upset at the accidental turn of events. May and he stuff Duffy's corpse into the trunk of a Maserati, and Jack wanders off the next day in the brutal heat of Vegas to sleep it off in his Volvo that he cannot get to crank up. Jack is such a woebegone guy with so many problems that it is easy to see why an actor would love to fill in the gaps and play him. Ultimately, he isn't the kind of character that an audience wants to commune with for the length of any movie.

Later, Jack encounters Duffy's scummy brother Lewis (Ted Levine of "Silence of the Lambs") who is a notorious loan shark. Lewis proudly shows Jack his prized possession—the car that May used secretly to dispose of Duffy's body—and we learn that Lewis is an obnoxious jerk, too. Interestingly, Lewis thinks that Duffy has gone away on a trip. A suspicious Jack leaves Lewis after Lewis mentions his name; Jack never told Lewis his name so he doesn't trust him. On his way out, Jack runs into May. She confides in Jack that she buried Duffy's body in the desert. Eventually, Lewis shows Jack a tablet that contains a video of Jack at Lewis' house. This is how Lewis knew Jack's name. Anyhow, Lewis knows everything about Jack, his mountain of gambling debt, and his estranged wife and daughter. Surprisingly, Lewis isn't put out that Jack had something to do with his brother's death. He wants him now to kill May, and he is prepared to use blackmail to get him to do it. May shows up at Jack's sleazy motel, and Jack assures her that he will take care of Lewis. We learn that Duffy was a terrible husband who basically kept May in a metaphorical cage and watched her constantly when he wasn't out drinking and whoring. Jack arranges a visit with Paulie (Steven Seagal of "Exit Wounds") through another disreputable man that he owes money, Carl (Vinnie Jones of "Snatch"), and Paulie agrees to help him. He hands Jack a revolver that fires backwards and tells him to give it to Lewis. Jack and Lewis tangle in a gritty fistfight while treacherous May observes the brawl. May gets the drop on Jack, and she tries to kill him. Naturally, the revovler backfires and blows her away. Afterward, Paulie kills Lewis, and they warn Jack to clear out of town.

Gutshot Straight" occurs primarily in Las Vegas casinos and at an exotic house with a swimming pool and flaming torches. As mesmerizing as the action is, nothing really happens in this pedestrian 85-minute melodrama stocked with despicable characters. Jack finds himself in trouble for a murder that he didn't mean to commit, and he flees to his friends that he owes money and gets them to polish off the villain. The action comes full circle. Although it contains polished production values, "Gutshot Straight" essentially qualifies as a potboiler. Stephen Lang and Ted Levine spend more time on screen than either Steven Seagal or Vinnie Jones. Seagal fans won't like it that the paunchy Seagal has what amounts to a cameo. The DVD commentary is interesting and contains insights into the production. This is a one-time watch it only movie.

FILM REVIEW OF ''NOAH'' (2014)

Visionary filmmaker Darren Aronofsky is an acquired taste.   The Brooklyn-born, Harvard University graduate makes esoteric films with a film festival-oriented sensibility, and he dabbles in subject matter and story-lines that may strike some audiences as provocative but offensive.   Most of the time, Aronofsky helms R-rated movies that are far from being family friendly.   “Black Swan” (2010), “The Wrestler” (2008), “Requiem for a Dream” (2000) and “Pi” (1998) carried R-ratings, while the MPAA gave “The Fountain” a PG-13 rating.   Despite his debatable subject matter and storylines, Aronofsky takes his movie-making efforts pretty seriously.   Indeed, Aronofsky lives up to his provocative but offensive reputation with his sixth feature-length film.   “Noah” (**1/2 OUT OF ****) should not be mistaken for a conventional Christian movie.   Writer and director Aronofsky and co-scenarist Ari Handel draw not only on the Biblical Book of Genesis: Chapters 6-9, but also the apocryphal Jewish Book of Enoch.  Mind you, Aronofsky has described “Noah” as “the least biblical film ever made.” This ambitious but uneven 138-minute Old Testament tale bristles with surprises that drastically differentiate it from most theatrical Christian films.     According to Aronofsky, he wanted to explore the Great Flood as “an environmental apocalypse,” and he classifies Noah as “the first environmentalist.”    Superficially, the “Black Swan” filmmaker’s adaptation adheres to the broad, general outlines of the Biblical saga of Noah and the Great Flood.    This Paramount Pictures release, however, constitutes the first Biblical blockbuster to incorporate supernatural elements which have been confined traditionally to either science fiction or fantasy films.  The supernatural elements in part come from the Book of Enoch, principally the fallen angels referred to as ‘the Watchers.’  

“Noah” opens with the title hero as an adolescent.  Noah’s father Lamech (Marton Csokas of “Kingdom of Heaven”) unravels a sacred snake-skin and tells Noah about it when Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone of “The Departed”) and henchmen interrupt them.  No sooner has Tubal-cain shown up than he murders Lemech without a qualm.  He smashes Lamech in the skull with a hammer.  Decades afterward, Noah (Oscar-winner Russell Crowe of “Gladiator”) has grown up.  He has a wife, Naameh (Jennifer Connelly of “Blood Diamond”), and three children, Shem, Ham and Japheth.  Noah and Naameh have kept   themselves busy raising their three sons.  They behave like hermits and shun city-living.  Since Adam and Eve have been exiled from Eden, the Earth has degenerated into a desolate, inhospitable Hell on Earth.  Indeed, “Noah” resembles “Mad Max” because everything looks sun-scorched, and everybody dresses as if they were in a leather-clad, medieval movie.  At one point, Methuselah appears as a warrior clad in full body armor with an extraordinary sword.  As vast armies of men charge headlong toward him, Methuselah hoists his sword and then plunges it in the ground.  Miraculously, when he sinks the sword into the Earth, the effect is comparable a modern-day fighter jet dumping napalm, and Methuselah incinerates the entire army!  Much later, Noah has a dream.  He finds himself underwater with thousands of corpses.  When he awakens, he has his marching orders.  He visits Methuselah, now an ancient man in a remote cave atop a huge mountain and explains that the Creator plans to destroy the world with water instead of fire.  Along the way, Noah and company come across some brutal but sad looking hulks of giants referred to as Watchers.  The Book of Enoch contains references to these Watchers.  In this instance, the Watchers are fallen angels. They are mentioned briefly in Genesis as the Nephilim. Eventually, Noah recruits the Watchers to help him construct the Ark.  For the record, it takes Noah and company ten years to construct the Ark.  The novelization of the film is more explicit about the time factor than the film. Once the villainous Tubal-cain learns about Noah’s plans, he arrives with his dirty, filthy army to take advantage of this golden opportunity.  Tubal-cain demands that Noah assure him passage aboard the ship, but our hero defies him.  When Tubal-cain makes threats, the Watchers line up ominously behind Noah to defend him.  Meantime, Noah and Naameh have taken in a poor girl left-for-dead, Ila (Emma Watson of the “Harry Potter” movies), and she becomes Shem’s playmate.  Family tensions arise between Ham (Logan Lerman of the “Percy Jackson” movies) and Noah, when Ham is not allowed to take a girl for himself from Tubal-cain’s kingdom. 

As historical Biblical films go, “Noah” is nothing like the earlier release “Son of God.”  Moreover, little in “Noah” resembles the 1966 epic “The Bible: In The Beginning” that cast John Huston as Noah, with an ark that looked more like a ship more than a rectangular wooden cargo container box.   Russell Crowe’s darkly-clad Noah qualifies as much as an action hero as a patriarchal figure who shuns meat as a part of his diet.   He can wield a knife with the best of them, and he acquits himself admirably in close-quarters combat when he clears the deck of the Ark of intruders before the rain launches the vessel.   In fact, Noah is terribly obsessed with the awesome duty that he must do for his 'Creator.'  Initially, he believes that he must preserve the wildlife for a new world even though he thinks that his own family is condemned to perish!  The performances are all above average with Ray Winstone making a thoroughly evil villain Tubal-cain.  Anthony Hopkins shows up occasionally as  Methuselah.  Jennifer Connelly makes quite an impression, too, as Noah's long-suffering wife.  For the record, nobody utters the name ‘God’ anywhere in “Noah,” and this crucial omission may be more than traditional Christians may tolerate.   In the novelization of the film, the word Creator is substituted for the name God, too.  Indeed, Aronofsky takes full advantage of poetic license in his interesting but awkward re-imagination of the Great Flood.  Throughout “Noah,” the principals entwine the snake skin that the serpent shed when it slithered into Eden, and this birthright is deployed for its magical properties.   The character of Methuselah provides Noah with a seed from the Garden of Eden that enables him to build the Ark.   Aronofsky changes several things, eliminates certain characters from Noah’s family, and allows a treacherous stowaway to slip aboard the Ark. If you are a stickler for fidelity, you aren't going to like this beautifully lensed opus. Ultimately, the supernatural creatures that will spoil it for Bible purists.  Secular audiences may enjoy “Noah” more than their spiritual counterparts for Aronofsky’s radical departure from the story and the new design of the Ark.

FILM REVIEW OF ''TAKEN 2'' (2012)

Writer and producer Luc Besson has said that the latest Liam Neeson abduction opus “Taken 2” (*** out of ****) won’t spawn a sequel.  Nevertheless, the prolific Parisian filmmaker might whistle a different tune after he scrutinizes the box office that this handy, white-knuckled thriller has drummed up.  Since it debuted Friday, October 5th, “Taken 2” has taken twice as much as its exciting predecessor coined on its own opening day.  Despite Besson’s assurances to the contrary, co-scripter Robert Mark Kamen and he have left “Taken 2” wide open for another sequel.  Meantime, little has changed since 2009 when director Pierre Morel’s “Taken” pitted retired CIA operative Bryan Mills against an Albanian-run white slavery ring operating out of Paris.  This time out, Besson and Kamen have doubled the derring-do.  Not only do the villains want to nab the daughter again, but they also want the father as well as his estranged wife.  Director Olivier Megaton, who helmed “Transporter 3” and “Columbiana,” doesn’t let anything stand in the way of Neeson as he shoots, stabs, and slugs his way through even more Albanians in this formulaic shoot’em up that never squanders a second of its pared down 91-minute running time.  Although it isn't as suspenseful as the original “Taken,” “Taken 2” serves up more than enough outlandish action with some very obnoxious villains, including distinguished Croatian actor Rade Serbedzija, who take liberties with Neeson’s co-star Famke Janssen. Chief among the assets of this sequel are its atmospheric Istanbul locations, particularly the Suleymaniye Mosque, the Grand Bazaar and the Bosphorus.  Maggie Grace sprints across some impressive Turkish architecture with villains nipping at her heels while our hero plunges into some claustrophobic settings in search of his ex-wife.

“Taken 2” opens as the coffins containing the corpses of the white slavers that Bryan Mills mowed down in "Taken" are taken back to Albania for burial.  During the funeral, Murad Krasniqi (Rade Serbedzija of “Batman Begins”) vows to wreak vengeance on Mills for slaying his good-for-nothing son as well as the sons of his dastardly relatives.  As it turns out, Bryan (Liam Nesson of “The A-Team”) has just completed a security job in Istanbul when his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen of “GoldenEye”) and his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace of “Lockout”) surprise him with their presence.  Although Lenore and Bryan are divorced, this doesn’t keep Kim from playing Cupid when she sends them off together for their own sight-seeing tour of Istanbul.  The fiendish villains aren’t far behind.  They strike at the motel where Kim is splashing about in a swimming pool.  Surprisingly, they fail to nab Kim because her fleet-footed, fast-thinking father is a couple of steps ahead of them.  Bryan alerts his daughter and tries to pack Lenore out of harm's way, too.  Of course, complications arise.  Murad’s well-armed minions capture both Bryan and Lenore and hide them in the bazaar.  Since he knows a thing or two about handling hard cases, Bryan isn’t on ice long before he retaliates and takes down one Albanian after another with extreme prejudice. Predictably, Bryan saves the day, but not before the villains slash Lenore and suspend her upside down so that gravity is about to drain her of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness in a mere 30 minutes.  None of this will do, and Bryan figures a way out of his predicament, but he cannot rescue his ex-wife as quickly as he would prefer.  The villains haul Lenore off again, and our hero has to second guess them using what he saw and heard during their initial abduction to track them down.

 

Mind you, most of the repugnant villains behave like ten-pins in a bowling alley that our hero knocks down with absurd ease.  What sets “Taken 2” apart from the conventional kidnap caper is Bryan’s method of locating himself and his wife.  After she escapes from her would-be abductors, Kim scrambles across rooftops slinging grenades so her father can triangulate his location for her and bring her to his rescue.  She delivers an automatic pistol to him, and he starts slinging lead with no end in sight.  When director Olivier Megaton isn’t showing things from the perspective of the father, he stages several snap, crackle, pop action scenes that will make you squirm and wince.  Make no mistake, “Taken 2” could have been twice as bloody as an R-rated thriller, but PG-13 nail-biters pull in bigger audiences.  “Taken 2” will have you begging for a third!