A FILM REVIEW OF "BULLET TO THE HEAD" (2013)

Watching the Sylvester Stallone shoot’em up “Bullet to the Head” (**** OUT OF ****) felt like a blast from the past.  This polished but predictable anthology of action movie clichés contains several R-rated, close-quarters, combat scenes with sufficient amounts of blood splatter and gore; some high-octane, fireball explosions; lots of snappy tough guy banter; and surprising displays of frontal female nudity.  Half the scenes reminded me of producer Joel Silver’s explosive, slam-bang, white-knuckled, testosterone-laden tales, such as “Conspiracy Theory,” “Exit Wounds, “Swordfish,” and his “Lethal Weapon” franchise.  Indeed, Silver serves as one of the producers, and “Bullet to the Head” adheres to his formula.  Meanwhile, action auteur Walter Hill drew the other half from his hardboiled melodramas.  For the record, Hill helmed the two “48 Hrs” flicks with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy, “Extreme Prejudice” with Nick Nolte, “Last Man Standing” with Bruce Willis, and “Red Heat” co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi.  Although “The Messenger” scenarist Alessandro Camon adapted the Alexis Nolent graphic novel "Du plomb dans la tête,” “Bullet to the Head” looks like “48 Hrs” and/or “Red Heat” clone.  Mind you, “Bullet to the Head” is Hill’s first theatrical release since his gritty 2002 prison melodrama “Undisputed” with Ving Rhames and Wesley Snipes.  During his absence from the big screen, Hill helmed the premiere episode of HBO’s “Deadwood,” and then the television mini-series western “Broken Trail” (2006) costarring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church.”  In many respects, this action-packed, largely straightforward, odd couple buddy picture compares favorably with earlier, exceptional Stallone sagas like “Assassins,” “The Specialist,” and “Demolition Man.”  Most definitely, it surpasses “Tango and Cash” and “Stop, Or My Mom Will Shoot.”

Cast as a seasoned hit-man in the Crescent City, Sylvester Stallone tangles with a mysterious cabal of Big Easy investors who have the New Orleans Police Department on their payroll.  Director Walter Hill has juggled the occupations of the protagonists from his earlier buddy picture epics.  The cop was always the lead in the combo in the “48 Hrs” movies and “Red Heat.”  This time around, world-weary, career criminal James “Bobo” Bonomo (Sylvester Stallone of “Rocky”) is the lead, while saintly, Washington, D.C. Detective Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang of “Fast & Furious”) behaves rather naively and relies too much on his cell phone.  Ironically, the two men want to exact vengeance for the deaths of their former partners.  They agree to form an uneasy alliance, but Kwon’s conscience prompts him to constrain Bonomo. These two don’t immediately run into each other. When the plot unfolds, Bonomo and his partner Louis Blanchard (Jon Seda of “Bad Boys 2”) masquerade as cops to snuff a cocaine-snorting thug, Hank Greely (Holt McCallany of “Fight Club”), in a motel room.  Bonomo spots a tattooed prostitute cowering in the shower, but he lets her live.  This amoral murderer draws the line at shooting women.  When he is behind the wheel on the road, he swerves to avoid stray cats in front of him.  “It’s bad luck,” he assures Louis.  These two show up at a crowded bar where they are supposed to pick up the balance of their loot for the shooting.  Before either realizes they have been double-crossed, another assassin, Keegan (Jason Momoa of “Conan”), stabs poor Louis repeatedly to death in front of everybody.  He wields a small blade to hack both of Louis’ lungs so nobody in the noisy bar knows a murder has occurred.  Keegan isn’t quite as lucky with Bonomo.  Now, Bonomo wants payback.  Our hero crosses paths with a hard-nosed, Washington, D.C. police detective who is visiting New Orleans.  As it turns out, Hank Greely was his former partner in Washington.  Kwon wants the people who ordered Hank’s demise.  Sure, neither Bonomo nor Kwon have much use for each other initially, but they kind of grow on one other as they survive back-to-back fracases. 

Hill stages some gripping shoot-out scenes that genre fans will savor, and you get to see Silver's trademark Ka-Boom explosions!  Hill never lets the narrative bog down in aimless chatter or an over elaborate plot.  Stallone’s character provides deadpan narration throughout the pyrotechnics so you never take anything seriously in “Bullet to the Head.”  “Bullet to the Head” is not unlike a Tarantino thriller.  Camon and Hill wrap up everything, but leave room for a sequel since the hero’s daughter and the D.C. cop are dating.  At 66 years of age, Sylvester Stallone appears as fit as a fiddle.  This is the kind of movie where guys shed shirts and clash muscles.  He channels a little bit of “Rocky” in his tongue-in-cheek performance.  The ax fight between beefy, muscle-bound Jason Momoa and Stallone has been carefully edited to present both to maximum advantage.  You know Stallone is going to triumph, but Momoa doesn’t make it look easy.  Momoa makes a lusty villain.  No less villainous is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as a crippled, African investor has no qualms about murder.  Christian Slater appears briefly as a smarmy swindler with a flash drive around his neck that boasts the goods of everybody.  The interrogation scene is pretty amusing.  Clocking in at a lean, mean, 97 minutes, “Bullet to the Head” doesn’t wear out its welcome.  You don’t even have to wait around to see what’s after the end credits so you can clear out early.  Were it not for the pedigree talent involved, “Bullet to the Head” would qualify at best as a three-star rather than a four-star movie.  If you still like Stallone, you'll love "Bullet to the Head" because it is worth shelling out the bucks to watch this Spartan saga.

FILM REVIEW OF "THE EXPENDABLES 2" (2012)

Watching the old-fashioned, larger-than-life, male-bonding epic “The Expendables 2” (**** OUT OF ****) is like enjoying a nostalgic jaunt down memory lane. A gallery of brawny 1980s era, action-hero icons assembles for this testosterone-laden tale that depicts combat on land, sea, and in the air with double-digit body counts. At one point, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis stand shoulder-to-shoulder, armed with automatic weapons, firing fusillades of bullets into wave after wave of pugnacious bad guys.  Joining Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis this time out are two more 1980s era action heroes: Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Along with these legendary leading men, newcomers Liam Hemsworth, Scott Adkins, and Nan Yu dodge bullets, too. Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, and Dolph Lundgren reprise their roles as Barney Ross’s tough-as-nails mercenaries. Just as sentimental as the original “Expendables,” “Expendables 2” conjures up ten times more carnage and demolition in its remote Bosnian settings.  Unlike the original, this ambitious sequel gives Schwarzenegger and Willis far more screen time to flesh out their identities.  While the dialogue amounts to amusing one-liners served up over twenty years ago in the advertising campaigns of “The Terminator” and “Die Hard,” the formulaic screenplay penned by Stallone and “16 Blocks” scribe Richard Wenk qualifies as a standard-issue revenge thriller. Essentially, you should prepare yourself for lots of eardrum numbing battle sequences interspersed with soul-searching dialogue scenes among the principals when they aren’t exposing themselves in the line of fire.  Nothing has really changed aside from a fresh, new setting in Albania that appears scenic in its own grungy way. 

“The Expendables 2” erupts with a series of slam-bang action scenes that resemble something “The A-Team” use to pull off every week during its five-year run on NBC.  Barney Ross and his pals show up in a squalid-looking town in Nepal on a ‘do or die’ mission to rescue a Chinese billionaire from some nasty extortionists. They careen into the city in military vehicles designed to smash through barriers of every description. These aggressive-looking trucks have clever names stenciled on them, such as ‘knock-knock’ and ‘bad attitude.’ Mind you, it doesn’t matter that our heroes are hopelessly outnumbered because they devastate the opposition mercilessly with artillery blasts and bursts from .50 caliber machine guns. At one point, Barney (Sylvester Stallone of 1981’s “Nighthawks”) cranks up a motorcycle and wields it like a weapon to bring down a helicopter.  Our heroes evacuate in motor-driven boats but find themselves pursued by trigger-happy soldiers in ‘Everglades’ air-boats armed with mortars. Momentarily detained in the jungle, Barney and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham of 1998’s ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”) recover their seaplane and sweep down out of the sky like the cavalry as the villains are drawing a bead on their comrades.  There is even a revelation or two in all this bullet-riddled mayhem that takes Barney by surprise before they make their getaway.

After a round of beers back home, Barney runs into the dubiously named Mr. Church (Bruce Willis of 1988’s “Die Hard”) who has been waiting for him at the latter’s aircraft hangar.  Church dispatches Barney Ross and his cronies on ‘a walk in the park’ mission to crack a safe in a crashed jetliner. Church surprises Barney when he sends one of his own agents. She can open the mysterious safe without atomizing everybody.  Initially, Barney objects to bringing a woman along on the mission. As it turns out, Maggie Chan (NanYu of “Diamond Dogs”) allays Barney’s anxieties that she won’t be able to fend for herself. Maggie looks extremely lethal in combat against multiple male opponents. Our heroes have no problem locating the wreckage of the jet and a few tense moments ensue after they find the safe. Unfortunately, everything goes awry afterward, when an army of sadistic villains intervenes, demands the contents from the safe, and threatens to execute one of Barney’s unit if they don’t lay down their arms and hand over what they found in the plane crash. Motivated as much by the loss of one from their own ranks, Barney and company set out in furious pursuit of the villains.  An Eastern European crime cartel led by an appropriately named thug Jean Vilain (Jean Claude Van Damme of 1988’s “No Retreat, No Surrender “) has no qualms about killing. The information liberated from the safe contains the whereabouts of five-tons of plutonium abandoned by the Russians in a derelict mine during the Cold War. Vilain and his menacing minions have recruited slave labor from the location population at gunpoint to help them excavate the plutonium.

British director Simon West, who helmed “Con-Air,” “Laura Croft, Tomb Raider,” and “The Mechanic,” rarely allows the pace to slow down in this noisy extravaganza, especially when the heroes and villains are blasting away at each other with murderous glee. West and “xXx: State of the Union” editor Todd E. Miller never unnecessarily linger on a single image.  Some of the editing seems almost subliminal.  Clocking in at a nimble 102 minutes, “The Expendables 2” offers double the action with double the stars. “Lone Wolf McQuade” star Chuck Norris finds himself in the fray and shows that he still possesses the stamina. It is difficult to believe that all these guys, who once battled it out among themselves for box office supremacy, have come together to make such an outlandish but entertaining opus. For the record, Dolph Lundgren’s character, Gunnar, has cleaned up his act from the original and is back with Barney and company. Gunnar still picks on agile, pint-sized Jet Li while Barney and Lee bicker with each other about anything and everything. If you saw “The Expendables,” you know that Lee Christmas had fallen in love with a gal who let her sadistic boyfriend beat up on her.  Lee and Lacy (Charisma Carpentar of TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) are now a couple. Conspicuously absent from the cast is Mickey Rourke who played the philosophical Tool in the original.  If you loved the original “Expendables,” you’ll love “The Expendables 2.” Rumors are flying that the producers are already casting a third installment in the franchise.

FILM REVIEW OF ''BEVERLY HILLS COP 3" (1994)

This uninspired sequel about a counterfeit ring operating in a Walt Disney look-alike amusement park qualifies as the least entertaining entry in the "Beverly Hills Cop" franchise. After producing "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Beverly Hills Cop 2," Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer had nothing to do with this pathetic Paramount release that unimaginatively drags Detroit Detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy of "48 HRS") back to California for the third time. You can tell when a franchise has run
out of momentum because it starts knocking off its own characters. Further, neither Taggart (John Ashton of the first two "Beverly Hills Cop" movies) nor Capt. Bogamill (Ronny Cox of the first two Beverly Hills Cop" movies) return. Nothing is ever said about Bogamill's absence, but we're told that Taggart has retired. (Actually, in the Special Features on the DVD release, a producer mentions that John Austin was not available so his character had to be replaced.) Nevertheless, nobody replaces Captain Bogamill, but franchise newcomer Hector Elizondo appears as John Ashton's replacement. Let's not forget Paul Reiser's character Detective Jeffrey Friedman who is conspicuous by his absence. Not even witty Bronson Pinchot can rekindle the magic with his English-language challenged foreigner, Serge, who no longer works at an art gallery, has concocted what he refers to as a firearms boutique.

Sadly, this is one sequel that shouldn't have been made. Although the stunt work is exemplary in the Spider Ride park scene, the recurring firefights between our hero and the trigger happy villains conjure up neither suspense nor tension. "Beverly Hills Cop 3" (*1/2 out of ****) recycles one of the most deplorable movie clichés. Specifically, the well-armed villains cannot hit the side of a barn with their machine guns. Axel's one-liners and the dialogue are both forgettable. Murphy doesn't field many laughs and looks pretty idiotic wandering around in an elephant costume. In all fairness to the filmmakers, at least they did not have another foreign villain with a heavy accent like they had in the first two entries.

"Animal House" helmer John Landis doesn't let the derivative action bog down in complications, but the contrived Steven E. de Souza screenplay yields few surprises. Axel doesn't suffer any setbacks on the scale that he did in the first two outings. Simply said, Landis and Souza develop few things that haven't done before with greater polish. It is interesting to note the change in settings where Axel is concerned during his time off. In "Beverly Hills Cop," he stayed in the Beverly Palms. In the sequel, he hung out at an plush house with a pool. In "Beverly Hills Cop 3," he has a room at the Sunset Motel. The only exciting scene occurs early in the action when the bad guys riddle the sports car that Axel appropriates when he chases them through the streets. The multitude of bullets that the ruffians pour into Axel's car wind up dismantling it piecemeal until it falls apart. Director John Bonito would borrow this gag for his 2006 thriller "The Marine" with wrestling sensation John Cena. Worse, Axel seems to have lost his ability to clown around with everybody as he did in the first two. Murphy grins a lot but nothing he does boasts a glimmer of spontaneity. Meanwhile, this abysmal second sequel looks like utter hack work.

Meanwhile "Innocent Blood" lenser Mac Ahlberg doesn't make the shoot'em up scenes look cool like they were in the original and the first sequel. Despite the profane language, this ignominious R-rated crime thriller qualifies as a by-the-numbers, cookie cutter actioneer. Clearly, the franchise had lost its agility by this time that Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer had shed themselves of it, and nothing Murphy does resuscitates it. While he is investigating the chief villain, Ellis De Wald (Timothy Carhart of "Thelma & Louise"), Axel flirts with Janice (Theresa Randle of "Junge Fever") who works for everybody's favorite uncle, Uncle Dave Thornton (Alan Young of TV's "Mr. Ed") who cannot figure out what is happening in his theme park.

"Beverly Hills Cop 3" resembles the original only in the narrative respect that our protagonist leaves Detroit and heads back to Beverly Hills to arrest the cold-blooded murderer that shot his boss, Inspector Douglas Todd (Gilbert R. Hill of "Beverly Hills Cop"), three times during a Tuesday morning raid on an auto chop-shop in the Motor City. (Incidentally, there is a flaw here because when Axel confronts Ellis DeWald in Wonder World, he accuses DeWald of shooting Todd on a weekend.)The complication here is that Axel goes into the operation with the idea that the mechanics won't be armed with machine guns, so he doesn't summon S.W.A.T. for back-up. While Axel is justifying his decision to Todd, De Wald and his machine gun wielding gunmen shoot up the garage, killing all the chop shop personnel so De Wald can get a Ford delivery van filled with U.S. Government stamped boxes. Once Axel enters Wonder World, the film degenerates into claustrophobic mediocrity. The scene when Axel brandishes the Annihilator 2000 gun is one of the worst. Of course, our hero cannot get the elaborate firearm with a CD-player and other gadgets work properly when he faces down a couple of villains with machine guns. Timothy Carhart makes a smug enough villain, but he never really poses a real threat to Axel. Incidentally, Landis indulges himself by inserting Hollywood directors in cameos throughout his movies. If you look closely, you will spot George Lucas, John Singleton, Joe Dante, Barbet Schroeder, Peter Medak, Arthur Hiller, George Schaefer and Martha Coolidge in some of the scenes. Sadly, the third time is not the charm for either the "Beverly Hills Cop" franchise or Landis and Murphy who teamed up again after "Trading Places" and "Coming to America."

Eddie Murphy has gone on the record and called "Beverly Hills Cop 3" "ill-fated." What more do you need to know???