FILM REVIEW OF ''DEFENDOR" (Canadian-2008)

Serio-comic movies about ordinary Joes who don costumes and behave like superheroes are quickly becoming a dime a dozen. John Ritter played a struggling actor in “Hero-At-Large” (1980) who thwarted a robbery while wearing a Captain Avenger costume for a movie that he was hired to promote. Crackpot inventor Damon Wayans suited up as a super hero in “Blankman” (1994) after he created a bulletproof wardrobe. The 2006 indie feature “Special” saw Michael Rapaport of “True Romance” as a nobody police traffic-ticket writing cop named Les who participates in an experimental study for new antidepressant medication named Specioprin Hydrochloride. Rapaport becomes delusional and believes he can levitate himself off his sofa and penetrate walls without injury. Freshman Canadian writer & director Peter Stebbings has woven a similar but insightful yarn along these lines, “Defendor” (*** OUT OF ****), about a mentally challenged chap (Woody Harrelson) who believes that he is bullet-proof and tries to clean up his hometown. He targets a ruthless Serbian gangster as his nemesis that he nicknames ‘Captain Industry.’ Unlike its predecessors, “Defendor” unfolds as a straightforward crime movie with a hero who is truly deluded from the start and the villains are genuine thugs who want to terminate our hero with extreme prejudice. Along the way, Stebbings contributes some interesting ideas about the psychology of an individual who puts his life on the line to help others. Mind you, none of the aforementioned characters remotely resemble high profile vigilante crime busters like “Batman,” “The Green Hornet,” and their ilk. Captain Avenger, Blankman, and Les aren’t millionaire philanthropists or acrobats. The idea of a guy dressing up to curb crime is far from original; Republic Film studios made their share of serials about these crime fighters in the 1940s, but Stebbings isn’t out to ridicule his hero. Although the hero of “Defendor” is incompetent, what he stands for provides him with a wealth of dignity.

Arthur Poppington (Woody Harrelson of “Zombieland”) is a lowly, inconsequential city employee. He is the kind of guy that you sometimes see at roadway construction sites who holds a two-sided traffic sign with STOP on one side and SLOW on the other. During the day, he is unassuming Arthur. After dark he decks himself out in a black outfit, a SWAT-style helmet with mini-lights and a camera connected to a portable VHS recorder on his back and tries to battle crime. Arthur doesn’t have a Bat Cave or a Fortress of Solitude, but he feels called upon to defend the defenseless. His mother left him when he was an adolescent and he never knew his father. Meanwhile, his one-armed grandfather, who fought in World War I, explains that Arthur’s mother, Fay (Charlotte Sullivan of “Fever Pitch”), died using illegal drugs. Arthur’s objective is to eliminate the drug dealers that deprived him of his mother. Our hero’s morality springs from his obsession with comic books such as “G.I. Joe.” Meantime, Arthur’s costume is wholly improvised; right down to the capital-letter D that he duct-tapes onto the front of his outfit. The arsenal that he relies on consists of a slingshot, marbles, lime juice--he squints this into the eyes of his adversaries, wasps, and a World War I trench club. Arthur believes that men who wield firearms are cowards. People who call him ‘Defender’ really infuriate Arthur, and he stipulates that his name ends with an ‘or’ rather than an ‘er.’ As you can easily imagine, Arthur is neither shrewd nor courageous. Actually, he believes that he is bulletproof!

Writer & director Stebbings has taken an estimated budget of $3.5 million and helmed a film that looks incredibly sophisticated and generates loads of atmosphere for our underdog hero. Despite this miniscule budget, Stebbings orchestrates events so that the film achieves a level of modest complexity. The narrative leaps and lunges back and forth in time to flesh out our protagonist while propelling the film along its formulaic path. Anybody who attempts to perform superheroic deeds has got to be delusional and “Defendor” opens with Arthur undergoing a court ordered psychiatric evaluation. Again, the action goes into flashback mode, and we learn how Arthur embarked on his crime fighting odyssey. Arthur’s first encounter occurs when he assaults an undercover policeman, Chuck Dooney (Elias Koteas of “The Fourth Kind”), who has a rendezvous with a crack-smoking prostitute named Angel (Kat Dennings of “Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist”) in a remote part of Hammertown. Defendor roughs Dooney up and the police arrest Defendor. Captain Fairbanks (Clark Johnson of “S.W.A.T.”) chats with Arthur and then releases him, but refuses to return the trench tool. Nevertheless, in that rare display of superheroism, Defendor confiscates the weapon that the police took away from him. Defendor has a Houdini-like ability to show up and vanish as if he were never where he was.

Later, Defendor defends a graffiti artist from Dooney and his henchmen, but the henchmen catch up with Defendor and beat him to a pulp. Nearby in the shadows, puffing away on her crack pipe stands Angel. She tries to revive Defendor, and Stebbings cross-cuts between Angel trying to revive him to Arthur as an adolescent (Max Dreesen of “The Jazzman”) being awakened by his drug-addicted mother who tells him that she is going away. Anyway, Angel and Arthur become friends and she hangs out with him at a dilapidated city garage that nobody uses any more where our hero hangs his hat. Arthur’s only other friend is Paul Carter (Michael Kelly of “Law Abiding Citizen”) who serves as a City Public Works supervisor. Paul and Arthur share a bond; Arthur saved Paul’s son from being struck by a car. After Arthur is arrested for assaulting Kat’s father, the judge allows Arthur to live with Paul rather than face prison. The catch, however, is Arthur cannot don his Defendor outfit. Of course, Arthur cannot accommodate the court when the villains snatch Kat to keep Arthur silent. You see Arthur knows when the slime-ball villains headed up by Kristic (Alan C. Peterson of “Shooter”) are expecting a container of guns and girls from Odessa. Before Arthur can rescue Kat, she rescues herself when the perverted corrupt cop Dooney tries to force her to have sexual relations with him and she shoots him in the genitals. The finale when Defendor crashes the pier with his bucket truck, loosens swarms of wasps and marbles is something to see!

Apart from its tragic ending, “Defendor” qualifies as a good movie that is evenly paced.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE REDHEAD FROM WYOMING" (1953)

“Tarzan’s Magic Fountain” director Lee Sholem’s Technicolor western “The Redhead from Wyoming” (*** out of ****) qualifies as a thoroughly predictable but nevertheless entertaining, old fashioned horse opera about a range war between trigger-happy cattlemen and homesteaders in the 1880s, with Maureen O’Hara at her fiery best. Indeed, Scholem’s oater modified the Johnson County War which was immortalized later in the notorious, big-budget debacle “Heaven’s Gate.” Mind you, the 1929 and the 1946 versions of “The Virginian” and “The Ox-Bow Incident” (1943) dealt with the Johnson County War, too. “The Redhead from Wyoming” appropriates one real life participant James Averell as its villain here. Furthermore, Averell’s conspirator is his girlfriend. Like Averell’s real-life wife, both were accused of cattle rustling. The Maverick law, true-life, old West legislation, ignited the conflict. “Mrs. Parkington” scenarist Polly James, with an uncredited assist from Herb Meadow, who penned 1956 “Lone Ranger” movie, wrote the screenplay from her own story. The dialogue ripples with memorable lines and the writers furnish all four major characters with solid back stories. James and Meadow don’t squander a melodramatic second sic-king the heroine, the sheriff, the cattle baron, and the villain at each other. Sholem orchestrates the action with unobtrusive aplomb. Lensed by three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Winton Hoch of “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” “The Redhead from Wyoming” bears a rough-hewn, frontier look despite being shot on the Universal Studios backlot. This medium budget oater boasts an adequate amount of gunplay during its larcenous, 81-minute running time.

“The Redhead from Wyoming” unfolds with the following narration that sets the stage for the showdown between both factions. “When the territories of the great west were thrown open, men of all kinds rushed in. Most came to settle peaceably, lured by free land, gold, cattle. A man could begin a herd with a maverick, an unbranded stray on the public range. By putting his brand on it, he owned it. The cattle barons had started their great herds with mavericks. Now, they fought each settler who tried to do the same. They fought to keep the settlers off the public lands, drive them from their homes, destroy their towns. Vast ranges became the battlegrounds of cattle wars. When the Wyoming big ranchers found guns were not enough, they used the Maverick Law, a law through which they appointed themselves commissioners with power to rule on the ownership of every maverick branded. A commissioner’s ruling could declare the settle a rustler, outlaw his brand, make his mavericks illegal to sell. Of course, there was no shortage of sharp-witted men who were quick to take advantage of the law.”

Sholem backs up the narration with action footage before he shifts the scene to the town square of Sweetwater, Wyoming, where city slicker clad Jim Averell (William Bishop of “The Walking Hills”) campaigns for the high political office of governor. Watching from horseback on the fringe is big-time cattle baron, Reese Duncan (Brooklyn-born Alexander Scourby of “Affair in Trinidad”), and he doesn’t like a word that Averell utters. “The Maverick Law,” Averell avers, “was designed to protect us all against cattle rustling. There is nothing in the law that says new settlers can’t pick up unbranded cattle and call them their own. When a cattle commission was appointed to watch over brands and cattle that was for our protection, too.” Duncan has had enough of Averell’s speech and blasts a hole in his city slicker’s hat. Sweetwater Sheriff Stan Blaine (Alex Nicol of “Gunfighters of Casa Grande”) fires his gun and calms down everybody. This scene opens up when our leading lady, Maureen O’Hara, arrives by stagecoach with a gaggle of other fancy saloon girls. Kate Maxwell (Maureen O’Hara of “The Quiet Man”) learns she is a part of Averell’s grand scheme to infuriate Reece Duncan.

Averell announces his plans to turn ownership of the saloon that he has been renovating over to Kate. Now, everybody can enjoy music, high-kick dancing, and “the straightest card game in Wyoming.” Averell promises the homesteaders that they will have the bucks to blow, too. He adds with a dastardly gleam in his eyes, “Kate’s a cattle buyer now. She aims to buy up every maverick you can lay a rope on. Kate’s got her own brand, and not some outlaw brand. She’ll market your mavericks for you and there’s nothing that Duncan and his Cattlemen’s Association can do about it.” Kate is already suspicious. The last time that she saw Averell was “running out of Abilene like a jack rabbit” leaving her to hold the sack. Duncan rides up and warns Kate not to buy any of his cattle. “Anything you take from me has lead coming after it.” As everybody disperses and Averell escorts Kate over to her saloon, they meet Blaine. Throughout the entire scene, only Alex Nicol received a close-up. Averell account for Blaine to Kate. “He’s just a drifter. Doesn’t make any trouble, doesn’t want any.” In the saloon, Averell draws Kate a picture of her brand: K Bar M. Kate wonders if the world isn’t coming to an end. “Not only is Jim Averell giving things away, but he’s paying his debts.” Averell grimaces, “I guess somebody ought to give me a necktie party for what I’ve done to you.” No, he doesn’t swing in “The Redhead from Wyoming.” Indeed, Averell wants to woo Kate back into his arms. He explains that if Reese Duncan is eliminated, he will become governor. Brags Averell: “I’m going to make the whole territory of Wyoming my own private range.”

Meantime, the nefarious Averell incites anarchy. He hires his own gunmen to rustle Duncan’s livestock. Eventually, Kate learns the truth but is powerless to retaliate. Earlier, Blaine encountered Duncan chasing Matt Jessup (Dennis Weaver of “McCloud” fame) for rustling cattle. Blaine turned back Duncan so Matt could escape. Eventually, Kate and Blaine meet. Blaine explains he started drifting at age 13 after his entire family was wiped out in a deadly range war near Houston, Texas. Later, after Kate leaves him behind her saloon by the corral, Blaine sees men running cattle into her corral. When he investigates, Averell’s three gunmen clobber him. This represents the second time that Averell’s men have had the chance to kill the lawman. Kate insists they let Blaine live. Averell orders them to dump Blaine somewhere far off so he will have a long walk back to town. Blaine recovers in the brush about 15 miles from town and trudges back to recover his Stetson and one of his two six-guns. Later, 'Knuckles' Hogan (Robert Strauss of “Stalag 17”) drives Kate out to visit Duncan. Duncan explains he came to the territory when he was ragged kid with holes in his boots. He doesn’t intend to let the homesteaders force him off his property. Kate appeals to him to leave the settlers alone so that he will win their gratitude and wind up in the governor’s mansion instead of Averell. About that time, one of Duncan’s men tells him that Matt and Hal Jessup (Greg Palmer of “Big Jake”) are rustling their cattle again. Duncan lights out with his men to corner the Jessup brothers. Kate appropriates one of Duncan’s mounts and joins them. Seizing Duncan’s six-gun, she holds him at gunpoint, and buys the Jessup Brothers time to get away. Considering that Matt and Hal had exhausted their supply of ammunition, they were indeed lucky. Eventually, Averell’s henchmen kill one of Duncan’s men, Wade Burrows (Ray Bennett of “Texas Renegades”) and plant a branding iron under his body that frames Kate. Kate is thrown in jail, but Knuckles and the boys break her out. Robert Strauss’ Knuckles character is virtually a forerunner of Bud Spencer in Spaghetti westerns. Duncan and Blaine trap Averell into revealing his villainy in a huge gunfight at the end that incriminates him.

Clearly, Maureen O’Hara is dressed in the gaudiest colored outfit imaginable to make her stand out among everybody else, including the other women. Meanwhile, Alex Nicol plays the hero in one of his ‘good guy’ roles and incarnates the standard western hero, an individual who is just ‘passing through’ when he agrees to pin on the sheriff’s star. William Bishop is aptly treacherous as the city slicker villain. Alexander Scourby makes a good bad guy who really isn’t that bad. He is rather like a red herring. You think that he is wicked, but he cannot match William Bishop’s cunning villain. Anybody who has spend any time watching vintage western television shows will recognize not only Dennis Weaver of “Gunsmoke” but also Jack Kelly of “Maverick” as William Bishop’s bodyguard. This is about as abrasive a performance as an adversary as Kelly ever gave. “The Redhead from Wyoming” is a gold, old-fashioned oater that never wears out its welcome.

FILM REVIEW OF ''GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES" (1961)

Italian composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino permeates "Hercules Against the Moon Men" director Giacomo Gentilomo with a flavorful, atmospheric score for his above-average, but predictable spear and sandal saga "Goliath and the Vampires" (*** OUT OF ****), starring muscle-bound Gordon Scott as the legendary champion. Like the Reg Park outing "Hercules in the Haunted World," Goliath confronts a supernatural adversary named Kobrak. Pirates from a distant kingdom attack a defenseless village without mercy. They raze the village, slaughter the men, abduct the nubile young women and transport them across the sea into slavery. These heartless sea raiders are so wicked that they feed the older women to the sharks. The eponymous strongman follows the pirates to their faraway island to rescue the women. Outnumbered as always, Goliath tangles with dozens of soldiers, but he exploits his strength to triumph over these greater numbers. No, Kobrak doesn't qualify as the standard vampire with fangs, a regal wardrobe, and beguiling eyes. Kobrak materializes like an apparition from nowhere, kills with ugly clawed fists, and reduces his victims to lifeless mummies. Moreover, the evil Kobrak shows no qualms about dispatching his own subordinates. Gentilomo and scenarists Sergio Corbucci of "The Mercenary" and Duccio Tessari of "Duck You Sucker" have contrived one of the better peplums, with several elaborately staged combat scenes. Indeed, a couple of counterfeit looking little monsters cheese up a scene or two, but they are quickly forgotten. Meantime, our brawny hero has his hands full most of his time struggling with his opponents. Bare-chested Gordon Scott is appropriately stalwart and purpose-driven as the male lead. The beautiful, hour-glass shaped women wear big hair. Gianna Maria Canale looks as gorgeous as she is treacherous, and producer Dino De Laurentiis seems to have spared no expense.

The opening scene solidly establishes the protagonist's character. Goliath (Gordon Scott of "Tarzan's Great Adventure") trudges behind two oxen and a plow, gouging grooves in an inhospitable field. Typically, the peplum hero is an outsider, sometimes a wandering adventurer, who enters a society and delivers it from tyranny, but Goliath is not an outsider here. Later, when he enters Salminak, he is an outsider. Gentilomo depicts Goliath as a peaceful farmer, using his incredible strength to uproot and remove a stump from the field. Clearly, though the most convincing but mundane scene, this modest display of brute force illustrates Goliath's determination to let nothing stand in his way. He uses his brawn to solve his problems. No sooner has Goliath gotten rid of stump than he hears cries of alarm. The young boy, Ciro (Rocco Vitolazzi), that Goliath brought with him, is drowning. Plunging from a high mountain cliff, Goliath saves the lad from a watery grave. Some kind of sea monster may have figured in Ciro's near drowning, but the fight has been mysteriously edited. As he takes Ciro back to their village on his white horse, Goliath reminds the youth that his sister would never have forgiven him if Goliath had let him die. Ciro chastises Goliath because he has kept putting his impending marriage to sister, Guja (Leonora Ruffo of ""Goliath and the Dragon") on hold. Gentilomo and his scenarists sketch more depth into Goliath's character than the typical peplum.

As they approach the village, they see clouds of dark smoke gathering. They arrive too late to thwart the pirates. Ciro's mother and father lay dead, while Goliath's mother (Emma Baron of "Aphrodite, Goddess of Love") dies in his brawny arms. "I shall avenge them," Goliath vows. "I shall free Guja and the others and those responsible will pay for their crimes." Moreover, Goliath is puzzled by the raiders. "Their ferocity and cruelty make no sense. Why do they murder like this without plundering. Why take nothing from the houses? Only the women are kidnapped and the men are thrown in the fire." An elderly man who survived the carnage informs Goliath that the raiders hail from the faraway island Salminak. Meanwhile, aboard their ship, the pirates slash the women, drawing plasma from all them but Guja, to fill a goblet for Kobrak to quench his thirst for blood. Kobrak's initial appearance aboard the ship is rather sinister. The leader of the raiders, Amahil (Van Aikens of “Revolt of the Slaves”) enters a chamber and a hideous hand wreathed in smoke emerges from behind a curtain and grasps the goblet. Gentilomo heightens the tension as the interior turns blood red and the curtain billow after Kobrak has drunk the blood. The captain scrambles out of the room, happy to be alive.

The setting shifts to the market place in Salminak as the soldiers force a man against his will to ascend a wooden pole about as high was a telephone pole. At the square-shaped base of the pole is an area laid out with spikes. The man reaches the top of the pole but loses his grip on the pole and plunges to his death. This is the same area where the women from Goliath’s village are about to be sold into slavery. An observant man named Kirtik (Jacques Sernas of “"Duel of the Titans"), who drapes himself from head to toe in apparel as if he were in an Arabian Knights adventure, stands in the crowd and takes an interest a new arrival. Goliath and Ciro ride into the market place and Ciro spots some of the village girls. Our hero goes into action, helps the girls escape. Magna (Annabella Incontrera of “"A Bullet for Sandoval"), slips away from the crowd with Kirtik. Later, they meet Goliath and Ciro in a hidden place while the army searches for the strongman. News of Goliath’s amazing exploits have swept through the city and alarmed not only Sultan Abdul (Mario Feliciani of "Devil of the Desert against the Son of Hercules") but also Astra (Gianna Maria Canale of “"The Lion of St. Mark"). We learn that he wants to destroy Kobrak: “There exists here a beast who is more evil than a fiend. You can repay me by helping me defeat him.” In the palace, the Sultan worries about both Goliath and Kobrak. One of his older advisors confides in the Sultan: “A monster dominates the country with his hooded murderers and diabolical forces. The time has come to act. The last hope of the people is you.” The advisor urges the Sultan to lead a rebellion against Kobrak, but he gets nowhere. “Impossible,” the Sultan snaps. “Remember we are slaves ourselves.” The advisor suggests Goliath might be convinced to work with them against Kobrak. Meanwhile, Astra eavesdrops on the Sultan and the advisor and kills the advisor after he is leaving by the hallway. She hastens to her altar and summons Kobrak. The huge entity in a hood with horns on its head emerges amid red smoke. Astra urges Kobrak to kill Goliath. But the vampire has no such plans for the strongman. “I want him alive. His magnificent body can serve as a model for the army of slaves with which I shall conquer the earth. An army of indomitable giants subservient to my will.”

Goliath and Kirtik venture out into the city under the protection of darkness and avoid the Sultan’s army. Initially, Goliath regards Kirtik with suspicion. “I only trust my shadow,” Goliath states. Kirtik tries to convince Goliath that they share the same enemy. “I do know that mine is a murderer who lurks and hides in the dark.” Kirtik relishes the challenge, “We’ll see if I can’t make him come out.” While our heroes skulk through the darkened streets, Magna rummages through Kurtik’s documents. She stumbles onto one with a serpent drawn on it. She reads it: “And from the serpent born in the depths of the kingdom of evil sprang the monster that nourishes itself on human blood to generate an army of automatons. Only the proud and noble people—the race of the blue men—will have the courage to combat the monster and restore face to each of those he has deprived.” Magna latches onto the name of the monster. “Kobrak is the name of the monster.” Predictably, the evil Kobrak materializes in a cloud of red smoke before Magna. He wastes no time and rakes his powerful claw across Magna’s screaming throat and kills her. At this point, “Goliath and the Vampire” has gotten just over a half-hour into its sprawling plot.

Peplum lenser Alvaro Mancori of "Ulysses against the Son of Hercules" captures the larger-than-life splendor and savagery of "Goliath and the Vampires" with his widescreen cinematography. The violence is somewhat abrasive, but it remains primarily bloodless during the commission of the act with blood visible afterward. One scene shows a marauder firing an arrow into a man's face, while other shows a spear hurled into the villainess' stomach. The Corbucci & Tessari screenplay boasts a surprise or two, especially during the finale when Goliath confronts a foe that matches his strength. The filmmakers put our hero in several tight spots. One fantastic scene has Goliath with his wrists shackled to a huge wooden yoke behind his neck and across his shoulders. Goliath's captor challenges him to escape. Exerting his superhuman strength, Goliath snaps the yoke in half, removes the shackles, and then dislodges a pillar that brings part of the dungeon crashing down on his captors. An earlier scene in the town square has our hero dismantles a torture device with giant spikes in it and wields it as a weapon against armed horsemen. According to the Wild East blurbs, Corbucci helped out Gentilomo helming a scene or two, but Gentilomo directed the lion's share of the action. He keeps the action moving briskly along in this trim 91-minute opus.

"Goliath and the Vampires" ranks as a better-than-average peplum.

FILM REVIEW OF ''REPO MEN" (2010)

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

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

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

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

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

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

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE BOUNTY HUNTER" (2010)

"The Bounty Hunter" (* out of ****) is not a rewarding experience. This lightweight but disposable comedy of errors about a grumpy bail bondsman up to his ears in gambling debts who must track down his investigative journalist ex-wife and take her into custody for bumping an NYPD police horse lacks momentum, coherence, and surprises. Indeed, the two leads--gorgeous blond Jennifer Aniston and rugged unshaven Gerard Butler--radiate more than enough physical chemistry, but a lackluster script lets them down. "Hitch" director Andy Tennant and "See Jane Run" scenarist Sarah Thorp have created an interesting premise packed with irony, but they blew it by having our attractive leads bicker with each other more often bash the bad guys in this lolly-gagging 110 minute misfire. Although it struggles to combine comedy with suspense as hilariously as both the Robert De Niro & Charles Grodin bounty hunting comedy "Midnight Run" (1988) and the witty Clint Eastwood & Bernadette Peters saga "Pink Cadillac" (1989) did, "The Bounty Hunter" rarely succeeds with either comedy or suspense. Nothing adds up here in this artificial romance about a divorced couple who rediscover their affection for each other.

New York Daily Times investigative reporter Nicole Hurley (Jennifer Aniston of "Marley & Me")receives a tip that a NYPD cop who leaped off a rooftop may not have committed suicide. Meanwhile, she ignores a summons to appear in court and pursues a red hot lead that may land her a scoop about the cop's mysterious death as well as police corruption. Nicole ditches her court date when her informant, Jimmy (Adam Rose of "The Squid and the Whale"), calls her up frantically as she is about to set foot in the courthouse and demands $500 with the story of a lifetime. Before our heroine can reach Jimmy, a trigger-happy thug with a gun, Mahler (Peter Greene of "Pulp Fiction"), abducts him in broad daylight. Back at the courthouse, the irate judge (Lynda Gravatt of "Landlocked") issues a bench warrant for Nicole's arrest. Ironically, former NYPD Detective Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler of "300") is pleading for more jobs when his boss Sid (Jeff Garlin of "RoboCop 3") hands him the task of hauling his ex-spouse to the hoosegow. Sid wonders if he is making the right decision when Milo reacts with ecstatic joy. Nicole and he were married for all of nine months before they got a divorce. Nicole's career soared as a result of their divorce, while Milo's career went down the crapper.

Simultaneously, Milo has been dodging two tenacious debt collectors. He owes them approximately $11-thousand dollars and needs the dough from Nicole's bond to pay them off. Naturally, when he cannot find Nicole, Milo contacts his former mother-in-law, a loony Atlantic City lounge singer, Kitty Hurley (Christine Baranski of "Mamma Mia!"), who sends him off to a nearby racetrack. Nicole, it seems, believes that she can take advantage of all the good luck that abandons other people at the racetrack to help her in her quest. Nicole's bubble bursts when Milo shows up and stuffs her unceremoniously into the trunk of a powder-blue limo. Inevitably, this leads to a succession of Nicole escaping from Milo and Milo recapturing her before our hero finally encounters Mahler. Not only does the murderous Mahler sideswipe Milo's car to get at Nicole, but he also exchanges gunfire with Milo. Milo starts taking Nicole seriously, especially when she implicates his former NYPD detective partner Bobby (Dorian Missick of "Rachel Getting Married") as a dirty cop. Naturally, Milo refuses to believe that Bobby, who gave Nicole away to him at their wedding, could be involved in corruption of any kind.

An array of harebrained supporting characters does nothing to supplement the humor in "The Bounty Hunter," except to make it seem even more labored. First, Irene (Cathy Moriarty of "Raging Bull") dispatches two incompetent morons to collect the big bucks that Milo owes her. Neither nitwit has any success, however, at recouping Irene's dough. Second, rather than nabbing Milo, they mistake an idiotic New York Daily News reporter, Stewart (Jason Sudeikis of "The Rocker"), for Milo. Stewart desperately wants to team up with Nicole on the suicide story. Nicole refuses to have anything to do with Stewart, but he stubbornly declines to take no for an answer. Repeatedly, Nicole turns Stewart down every time that he pleads to collaborate with her. Eventually, Stewart ends up following Milo around so that he can contact Nicole. At one point, Stewart checks the trunk of Milo's car because he thinks that Milo may still have Nicole stashed in it. One of the debt collectors traces Milo's car. When he sees Stewart tampering with the trunk, he assumes that Stewart is Milo. Nothing that Stewart can say persuades the debt collector to let him go. Instead, the debt collector brings Stewart back so Irene can torture him. Irene and company go to work on Stewart before they discover that they are breaking the wrong guy's legs! This exasperating routine turns into a running gag that lacks humor. Eventually, Irene and her henchmen realize that they have made a terrible mistake. Consequently, they call in a racetrack physician who brandishes a giant syringe filled with horse tranquilizer to alleviate Stewart's pain. Unfortunately, this subplot generates little humor, largely because Stewart gets what he deserves for behaving like such an obnoxious lout.

Predictably, everything works out for our heroic couple, but the story is so incoherent and humorless that you don't care what happens to them, or for that matter Stewart in this lackluster opposites-attract-romantic-comedy-thriller.

FILM REVIEW OF ''GREEN ZONE" (2010)

“Bourne Ultimatum” director Paul Greengrass thrusts audiences into the thick of the gunfire in his action-packed Matt Damon thriller “Green Zone” (*** out of ****), co-starring Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson and Jason Isaacs, about the Allied invasion of Iraq in 2003. Unfortunately, Greengrass’ high-octane, adrenaline-fueled combat actioneer clashes with Oscar-winning "L.A. Confidential" scenarist Brian Helgeland’s conspiracy theory narrative. This above-average, 115 minute, military melodrama about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will grip you with its verisimilitude. Greengrass choreographs the violence with such nerve-wracking ferocity that you feel as if you are scrambling with American soldiers as they blast their way into and out of tight spots with enemy gunners literally springing up out of nowhere to rattle off small arms. Anybody who has seen not only “The Bourne Supremacy” but also “The Bourne Ultimatum” knows Greengrass is the latest accomplished master of an old filmmaking technique known as cinema vérité. Cinema vérité occurs when filmmakers rely on hand-held cameras to capture actors and action as if it were really happening. Today we classify this form of filmmaking as ‘shaky cam.’ Greengrass helmed both “Bourne” thrillers and used cinema vérité to supercharge them. Despite its vigorous action set-pieces, “Green Zone” suffers marginally because Helgeland tampers with history and cooks up an expose that implicates a Washington, D.C., orchestrated conspiracy to go war against Iraq without sufficient cause.

Our protagonist, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon of “The Informant”), has been dispatched to Iraq to ferret out weapons of mass destruction following the 2003 invasion. People without a clue about Miller’s military rank should know that while he outranks top-senior enlisted soldiers, he is lower than commissioned officers. No matter where Miller and his team go, they always come up empty-handed. They shoot their way into three life-and-death predicaments, and each time they discover nothing. Miller’s frustration mounts and his questions make his superiors feel uneasy. He quizzes them about the so-called ‘reliable’ source that furnished them with the information. Later, disheveled CIA Baghdad Bureau Chief Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix") informs Miller that he will find no weapons of mass destruction at next scheduled WMD site on his list.

Meantime, a strictly peripheral character, Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), wants her confidential Washington, D.C., source to identify himself. As it turns out, Dayne’s source--code-named ‘Magellan--is none other than slippery Bush Administration official, Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear of “Stuck on You”), who knows far more than he is prepared to share. The villainous Poundstone keeps stringing along Dayne. Things change entirely for Miller when a friendly Iraqi (Khalid Abdalla of “The Kite Runner”), who Miller nicknames ‘Freddy,’ confronts him at a crowded intersection with a valuable tip. Freddy points them like a bird dog to a clandestine meeting of Saddam’s top lieutenants where he saw Iraqi General Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor of “Rendition”), who has been in hiding in Baghdad. Miller and his men storm the building, swap lead with the fleeing Iraqis, and our hero spots General Al-Rawi.

No sooner has Miller nabbed one of Al-Rawi’s subordinates, Seyyed Hamza (Said Faraj of “The Siege”), than Special Forces descends out of the blue in helicopters. Briggs (Jason Isaacs of “Daredevil” with a bandit mustache) takes Hamza into custody. He demands Miller cough up an address book that Miller confiscated with all the locations of Al-Rawi’s safe houses. Later, Miller slips the address book to Brown. Brown enlightens Miller about the amoral complications in the Iraq predicament. Stunned by these dire revelations, Miller tells Brown with a straight face, "I thought we were all on the same side." Brown straightens out Miller, "Don't be naive." In fact, while Miller concentrates on tracking down General Al-Rawi, Briggs and his men use all the resources at their disposal to shadow Miller without his knowledge. Basically, Americans are trying to outsmart other Americans in this melodrama of deceit. Indeed, Poundstone has important reasons for General Al-Rawi’s silence. Principally, Al-Rawi knows the truth about the WMDs. Poundstone wants Al-Rawi dead, and Briggs is committed to carrying out his boss’s orders.
The problem with “Green Zone” is British director Paul Greengrass and scenarist Brian Helgeland want the movie to double as a top-notch, white-knuckled, nail-biter but also as an indictment of the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq based on faulty information. In other words, the skillful filmmakers have intermingled truth with fiction or what is designated in intellectual circles as a roman à clef. Essentially, a roman à clef occurs when writers ridicule real people, such as either celebrities or political officials, without using their actual names. In this instance, New York Times reporter Judith Miller becomes Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne and Iraqi politician Achmed Chalabi have been given a fictional equivalent. Remember, Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction served as the key rationale for military intervention. Ostensibly, Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran's insightful 2006 non-fiction book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" inspired Greengrass and Helgeland. For example, in the middle of all this mayhem, Baghdad has a place, referred to as a “Green Zone,” for people to enjoy themselves as if war were not raging outside. Moreover, Chandrasekaran wrote that pork is commonly served in the Green Zone despite the fact that Muslims staff these areas. They used Chandrasekaran’s book to forge the appropriate background for their expose about the bureaucratic arrogance and stupidity that Americans exhibited in Iraq.

Production designer Dominic Watkins, art directors Mark Bartholomew, Mark Swain, and Frederic Evard, along visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang and special effects supervisor Chris Carreras should not be overlooked for their contribution to the film’s authenticity. These guys deserve recognition for recreating war-torn Baghdad with such meticulous detail. For the record, Universal Studios lensed “Green Zone” in Spain and Morocco, but you’d swear you were deep in the heart of hostile territory in this riveting, slam-bang shoot’em up.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE BOONDOCK SAINTS 2: ALL SAINTS DAY (2010)

Sophomore scenarist & director Troy Duffy has revived Connor and Murphy MacManus for his ultra-violent but often riotous sequel “The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day.” If you missed the original , these two Irish-American brothers who worked in a meat packing factory decided to arm themselves with a pair of silenced automatic pistols and imitate Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish” antics. In their case, the MacManus twins believed God had summoned them to serve as his avengers. Moreover, a rogue FBI agent pulled strings on their behalf so Connor and Murphy with their sidekick Rocco could terminate 22 of Boston’s finest criminals. According to Duffy, this 118-minute sequel materialized only because the cult status of the original convinced Hollywood that a second opus was inevitable. Happily, most of the original cast have returned and Duffy’s pro-vigilante message remains intact. Everything that made the first film engaging recurs in “The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day” (**** OUT OF ****), within the constraints of minimal realism. The controversial history of the original movie has something to do with the ten years that it took for Duffy to helm the sequel. Between the release of the original and sequel, a 2003 documentary about “The Boondock Saints” entitled “Overnight” showed what Duffy did to alienate Hollywood. Otherwise, “The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day” qualifies as both an ambitious and entertaining sequel that springs several surprises. Two of the cherished original characters bite the dust. This time around nobody accidentally shoots a cat. If you liked the original, you may enjoy the sequel.

Duffy has the “Boondock” formula down to the bullet holes, but he has made a number of changes. Many involve the replacements for the original characters who don’t return. First, FBI Agent Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe) doesn't reprise his role. Second, super sexy, southern-drawling, FBI Special Agent Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz of "Rambo") replaces Smecker and struts around stiletto high heels. Make no mistake, Bloom ranks as Smecker’s rival when she analyzes a crime scene. Third, although Rocco makes a cameo appearance, Dully replaces Rocco with a goon every bit as hilarious as Rocco. Indeed, Romeo (Clifton Collins, Jr., of "Crank 2") replicates Rocco in most respects, but he exhibits more discipline. Our heroes encounter this outlandish Mexican aboard the freighter that they take to cross the Atlantic. Fourth, Mafioso chieftain Concezio Yakavetta (Judd Nelson of “The Breakfast Club”) serves as the chief adversary this time, and Yakavetta commands an army of trigger-happy hoodlums. Audiences that saw the first “Saints” saga know that our heroes executed Concezio’s father in a courtroom.

Meantime, Duffy preserves other plotlines. The three Boston detectives play a more integral part in this sequel’s shenanigans. They fear that their role in aiding and abetting the MacManus twins in the last courtroom scene will come back to haunt them. Peripheral characters, such as the arms dealer and Doc, the barman with Tourette's syndrome who runs McGinty’s bar, reappear along with the Boston Chief of Police. Not only does Duffy recycle the best parts of the original, but he has also gone in and fleshed out the most enigmatic character for the original, II Duce (Billy Connolly), and furnished him with a back story. The back story concerns how II Duce as a youth named Noah who grew up to become a serial executioner after he saw his father murdered before his eyes. This subplot adds a whole new dimension to “The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day.”

Our Irish Catholic vigilante heroes have been living in a self-imposed exile in Ireland herding sheep and rolling their own cigarettes with their long-haired, bearded father (Billy Connolly) with whom they were reunited during the final quarter hour of “The Boondock Saints.” A beloved Catholic priest, Father Douglas McKinney (Dwayne McLean of “Charlie Bartlett”), has been brutally murdered in his own church, and the killer has framed the MacManus twins. Specifically, he imitated their ritual of shooting their victim in the back of the head and placing pennies on the eyes. Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery of “Powder”) and Murphy (Norman Reedus of “Hero Wanted”) cut off their shoulder-length locks and excavate their hardware. They return to their old stomping grounds and vow to kill anybody who had anything to do with the priest’s demise.

Initially, Bostonians are divided over the priest’s homicide. Half of Boston believes the MacManus twins iced the poor cleric, while the other half refuse to believe that their heroes would stoop to such sacrilege. Duffy uses the scenes involving the media to recap the Saints’ exploits from the first movie and their sudden disappearance after the courtroom shoot-out eight years ago. Meanwhile, Eunice wants to feed the hysteria and keep the MacManus twins on the front page until they can find who is at the bottom of the murder. Naturally, Eunice knows Connor and Murphy had nothing to do with the priest’s slaying. At the same time, the mob is incensed about the killing of the priest because it means that somebody wants the Saints back in town. The resolution of this mystery, which involves an enigmatic character called ‘the Roman’(Peter Fonda of “Easy Rider”) fame makes the final half-hour absorbing stuff.

“The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day” bears all the earmarks of the original: audacious gunfights, profanity galore, oddball characters, fractured time lines, and witty but politically incorrect dialogue. Duffy enjoys reversing the chronological order of events. An excellent example of his fractured time line occurs in the Chinese heroin massacre—about 35 minutes into the action--when the cops first investigate the slaughter at a heroin factory and then everything shifts into flashback mode before the massacre. The difference here is Duffy gives us a look at it from the perspective of an exploitation picture. In other words, he stages the shoot-out as if it were part of a 1970s era movie. Our cigarette smoking heroes are riding in a crate atop a fork-lift driven by Romeo. They perform incredible acrobatic feats as they plummet from the crate and then wield two guns a piece like Buffalo Bill to annihilate their adversaries. The film looks old and lacerated. The actual scene with our heroes experiencing a more realistic encounter with the villains ensues after their parody scene. Not surprisingly, the ending leaves everything open for another sequel. Altogether, anybody who calls Duffy a Tarantino clone doesn't have a clue about cinematic artistry and the depth of "The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day."