FILM REVIEW OF ''THE SITTER" (2011)

Comedian Jonah Hill usually plays a goof-off in a group of guys. He appeared in director Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up" as well as "Funny People" as part of a bunch of guys. Although Hill took top billing in "Superbad," Michael Cera attracted the lion's share of attention in that Judd Apatow produced teen comedy. Hill shared the screen with Russell Brand in another Judd Apatow produced laffer "Get Him to the Greek," but Brand dominated that comedy with his hopelessly eccentric persona. Now, in "Pineapple Express" director David Gordon Greene's "The Sitter," Jonah Hill plays top dog. Not only does he star as the protagonist, but he also is the butt of most of the humorous jokes.

Anybody who has seen the wonderful Christopher Columbus comedy "Adventures in Babysitting" (1987) might discern the palatable resemblance between "The Sitter"
(**** out of ****) and the former film. Freshman scribes Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka must have seen "Adventures in Babysitting," too, because Gordon's film involves a similar sequence of events. Circumstances compel our reluctant hero to serve as a babysitter. Later, he finds himself trapped between a rock and a hard place. Meaning, our hero must break rule number one of babysitting and leave the house. He must also break rule number two and take the children with him. Next, he breaks rule number three; he endangers their lives when he takes them in harm's way. The pay-off is that the kids learn some of life's harsh truths and experience a change in attitude about themselves. In fact, everybody, including the hero, learn something about themselves that they didn't know. The resemblance between the Chris Columbus movie and David Gordon Greene's movie ends at this point. "Adventures in Babysitting" qualified a mild PG-13 that skirted an R-rating, but kids and adults both can enjoy it. On the contrary, "The Sitter" deserves its R-rating for all of its profanity,
sexuality, and intense situations.

"The Sitter" is about the madcap misadventures of Noah Griffith (Jonah Hill of "Accepted"), a college drop-out slacker living at home with his single mom. Noah is such a pathetic character that he doesn't own a car and has to pedal around on his bicycle to visit his whiny blond girlfriend Marisa Lewis (Ari Graynor of "Mystic River") who is on the rebound. Our selfish hero winds up helping out his mother, Sandy Griffith (Jessica Hecht of "Sideways"), when he agrees to babysit three children for her. It seems that Sandy's dear friend Mrs. Pedulla (Erin Daniels of "One Hour Photo") has arranged a dinner date for her so Sandy can meet a bachelor surgeon. The backstory is that Noah's estranged father, Jim Griffith (Bruce Altman of "Matchstick Men"), who is a wealthy diamond salesman, divorced Sandy and wrangled a legal way out of paying her alimony. In fact, Jim left Sandy because he was cheating on her with the girl who he hired to babysit Noah. Now, Sandy has a shot at finding a husband, but there is a catch. When Mrs. Padilla's regular babysitter winds up with a urinary tract infection and cannot watch the kids, it looks like Pedullas will have to cancel the dinner date. Initially, Sandy tries to persuade Noah to substitute for the regular babysitter, but Noah objects. He argues that he is a grown man and grown men do not babysit. Noah realizes, however, that he is being self-centered and depriving his single mom of a chance to find happiness.

The wild and chaotic evening which ensues is one of the most traumatic in Noah's life. Everything looks pretty simple until he encounters the Pedulla kids. First, 9-year-old Blithe (newcomer Landry Bender) wants to grow up to become a media 'celebutante' like either Paris Hilton oLindsay Lohan. She copious amounts of make-up. Second, Blithe's 13-year old brother Slater (Max Records of "Where the Wild Things Are") suffers from a sexual identity crisis. As a result, his psychiatrist keeps him heavily medicated. What Max refuses to recognize is he is a latent gay tendencies. The Pedulla's third child is an El Salvadoran refugee, Rodrigo (newcomer Kevin Hernandez) with an anger management problem. Whereas Slater is mild-manner and repressed, Rodrigo is a full-tilt anus who loves to toy with explosives. Rodrigo's favorite pastime is tossing cherry bombs into toilets. Rodrigo isn't happy because he keeps getting foisted off on one foster home after another because of his
destructive antics.

No sooner have the Pedullas and Noah's mom embarked on their dinner date than Marisa phones Noah. She informs him she is finally prepared to have sex with him if he can score some coke for a friend. Impulsively, Noah throws caution to the wind. He piles the Pedulla children into their mini-van and cruises into New York City with them to buy cocaine from a psychotic dealer, Karl (Sam Rockwell of "Cowboys and Aliens"), who surrounds himself with muscle-bound bodybuilders. Rodrigo purloins one of Karl's prized dinosaur eggs packed with $10-thousand worth of coke. When Rodrigo and Noah tangle in a tug of war over the egg, they crack it and cocaine covers Noah's face. Later, a group of African-American gangstas steal the Pedullas' mini-van that Noah commandeered for their Manhattan melodrama. Now, Karl wants to ice Noah if our hero doesn't pay for the cocaine, and Noah still wants to hook-up with Maria.

Essentially, "The Sitter" constitutes a fish-out-of-water comedy where characters find themselves off their home turf at the mercy of merciless minions. Everything that can go wrong for Noah does go wrong. Miraculously, he manages to keep his bacon from getting fried, but in the process winds up running an incredibly hilarious gauntlet. The often profane but imaginative dialogue is as memorable as the diverse characters are crazy. These are the most grown-up urchins that you will ever see in a mainstream movie. Mind you, this is neither the kind of movie that you should take a child to see nor is it the kind you should watch if you like to sympathize with the protagonist. Aside from our Noah's mother and one of his college friends, virtually every character in "The Sitter" is fairly obnoxious. Our hero is the kind of guy who is not entirely trustworthy but he owns up to his mistakes and "The Sitter" ends on a positive note.

FILM REVIEW OF "SCARFACE" (1983)

Brian De Palma's contribution to modern crime movies, "Scarface" (**** out of ****), amounts to a splendid but extended remake of the 1932, black & white, Howard Hawks classic that starred Paul Muni and George Raft. In this lavish remake, Al Pacino of "The Godfather" trilogy plays the eponymous criminal as a Cuban refugee. He entered America by sea when Castro emptied his jails and asylums in May 1980 as part of the infamous Mariel boatlift. Some 125-thousand refugees fled Cuba, and about 25-thousand had criminal records. This extremely profane but engrossing drama depicts how the protagonist made it to the zenith of the crime world. When Universal Pictures produced this movie in 1983, they had no idea about either the controversy that would erupt during the south Florida lensing or the ultimate cult status that this corrosive, anti-narcotics, tragedy would generate, particularly with African-Americans. Eventually, the film aroused so much ill feeling that Universal had to complete the shooting in California. De Palma and scenarist Oliver Stone took one of the three greatest crime movies of the early 20th century and changed it more than either Hawks or his own scenarist Ben Hecht might have imagined. The original "Scarface" clocked in at a lean 94 minutes, while the "Scarface" remake stretches out to an indulgent 170 minutes. Nevertheless, DePalma and Stone have exploited a historical event to make their gangsters reminiscent of the immigrant gangsters during the era of the first "Scarface" movie. Indeed, at one point, Tony Montana explains to customs officials that he learned English because his American father took him to see Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney movies. He tells them that he worked in construction in Cuba, but they don't believe him and the pitchfork tattoo on Tony's hand makes him suspicious of him. They think that the tattoo is an assassin's tattoo. Considering that the film runs just shy of three hours, the filmmakers do a good job of balancing the violent empire building scenes with Tony's domestic life with his mother, sister, and later his wife. "Midnight Express" composer Giorgio Moroder's disco soundtrack ranks as one of the classics. Moroder does a superb job with the night club scenes and his moody music in the dramatic scenes is just as good. Lenser John A. Alonzo's widescreen color photography is elegant and his cameras have a way of roaming through a scene, especially before the shoot-out in the Babylon Club. DePalma likes to cross cut between different scenes, such as at the Babylon Club where Tony is about to be shot at to the interior of the car with his young sister Gina and his partner Manny as they drive away and discuss her brother. The best filmmakers cross-cut between scenes so as to break up the action, relieve boredom and deliver the plot piecemeal with the fewest complications.

Our underdog protagonist rises from the streets literally after he performs a murder at Freedomtown. Immigration officials have confined all the Cuban refugees, including Tony and his compadres, to a fenced in enclosure under a Florida freeway. Manny finds a way of out Freedomtown. Our protagonist kills a former confidante of Castro, Emilio Rebenga (Roberto Contreras of "Black Samurai"), for Miami drug dealer Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia of "Prizzi's Honor") because Rebenga tortured his brother in a Cuba prison. Tony and his compadres orchestrate the murder as a part of a riot on August 11, 1980, and they stalk Rebenga chanting the word "Libertad!" As a result of this murder, Lopez provides Tony Montana and his closest pal Manny (Steven Bauer of "Raising Cain") as well as some others with green cards. They start out as lowly dishwashers at a food stand called the El Paraiso. Nevertheless, it doesn't take them long to put on their suits and ties and then they never look back. Indeed, Lopez henchman Omar Suarez (F. Murray Abraham of "Amadeus") offers Tony and Manny $500 to unload a marijuana boat. Tony thinks the deal stinks because he has heard that the going price for unloading a boat was $1000. Omar winds up offering them a bigger paycheck. If they can pick up two keys of cocaine from a gang of Colombians arriving in Miami on Friday, Tony and Manny stand to earn $5000. Tony and Manny along with a couple of their Cuban buddies cruise over to the Sun Ray Motel and life is never the same after Tony enters the room. Everything looks okay. A man and a woman occupy the room and the movie "Earthquake" (1974) is playing on the television. The Colombian chieftain, Hector (Al Israel of "The Soldier"), tries to play a cat and mouse game with Tony. Things change drastically when Hector demands to know the whereabouts of Tony's money. Actually, Tony stashed the dough in the trunk of their convertible outside on the street with Manny and company. The Colombians seize Tony's back-up man Angel Fernandez (Pepe Serna of "American Me")at the door when Manny isn't watching, and Hector cuts him up with the chainsaw. Eventually, Manny shoots his way into the motel room with a machine gun in his fists blasting away at everybody in sight. He takes out the woman Marta (one-time only actress Barbra Perez), stitching her across the chest with flying lead. During the shoot-out, one of the Colombians that Manny thought that he had killed shoots him in the right side. The evil Hector who wielded the chainsaw flees in terror, but Tony chases him down in the middle of the street. In front of everybody, Tony perforates Hector's forehead with a bullet. Not only does Tony bring Lopez the coke but also the money.

Lopez takes an immediate liking to Tony. "Hey, I need a guy with steel in his balls. A guy like you. And I need him around me all the time," Lopez says. Meanwhile, Tony sets his sights on Lopez's slinky but gorgeous squeeze, Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer of "The Hollywood Knights"), but she seems more intent on snorting cocaine. Incidentally, Tony learns her last name on the dance floor and that she hails from Baltimore, Maryland. Anyway, Lopez assures Tony that if he flies straight with him that he will enjoy a long, happy life. He tells him that the biggest problem that Tony will face is what to do with all the stinking money. Lopez's words ring true but at a grim price.

Lopez sends Omar and Tony to Cochoabamba, Bolivia, to talk with a major druglord Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar of "The End of August") about cocaine. During their negotiations, Sosa smells a rat and has Omar taken up in a helicopter and thrown out with a noose around his throat. According to Sosa, Omar had served as a police informant several years ago and his information about Vito Duval and the Ramos Brothers--Nello and Gino--netted them both life sentences. Tony watches as Omar wiggles at the end of the rope. Predictably, Lopez is furious when Tony comes back with Omar and has a deal of a lifetime for Lopez that the crime kingpin cannot afford to buy. Tony assures Lopez that he can make up any difference in the lack of money by going out and hitting the streets. When Lopez argues that the Diaz brothers won't take kindly to Tony's ambitious movie, Tony erupts in a rage at Lopez. He is prepared to kill anybody that gets in his way. "Remember I told youwhen you started, the guys who last in this business are the guys who fly straight, low-key, quiet," Lopez reminds Tony. "And the guys who who want it all--chicas, champagne, flash--they don't last." Lopez is all but telegraphing his next move.

Meantime, Tony makes two new discoveries that heighten the tension in his life. He enters the Bablyon Club and spots his younger sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio of "The Perfect Storm")dancing with a thug. Tony goes ballistic with controlled rage and Moroder's music reflects this attitude change on the soundtrack. No sooner has Tony seen this than he finds himself talking to a cop. The cop mentions the Rebenga killing and the slaughter at the Sun Ray Motel to get Tony's attention. Corrupt detective MeL Bernstein (Harris Yulin of "Doc")informs Tony that Thony is no longer a small-time punk. "You're public property now. Supreme Court says your privacy can be invaded." Mel makes Tony a steep monthly offer. The offer includes the cops letting Tony know who is moving against him and shaking down anybody that Tony wants shaken done." Not-surprisingly, Lopez puts a contract out on Tony and two killers try to mow him down at the Babylon Club. Tony and his men kill both Lopez and Tony takes Elvira as his wife. He buys an estate, sets up a real estate business, and lives large, installing a 24-hour security monitoring system at his home. Ironically, Tony's affection for children bring him down along with his ferocious coke habit. When the cartel finds itself in the spotlight because of an anti-narcotic activist, Sosa appeals to Tony to help them. Tony is facing a stretch in prison, but Sosa assures him that he will come out clean if he helps his non-English speaking killer, Alberto (Mark Margolis of "Eddie Macon's Run"), murder the activist with a car bomb. Tony betrays Sosa and kills Alberto when the man tries to blow up the activist's car with the man's wife and two children. As tough as Tony is, he lacks the stomach to kill innocent bystanders, perhaps his only redeeming factor and what sets him apart from his criminal conspirators. Predictably, Sosa strikes back with a gang of gunmen who descend on Tony's estate, slashing, gashing, shooting, and killing without a qualm. They hit Tony's place like Indians on a night raid. Ironically, none of the surveillance cameras are useful for our protagonist, though they keep up posted on where the villains are.

Tony has other problems by now. He cannot find Manny and his mother, Mama Montana (Miriam Colon of "One-Eyed Jacks"), has been calling ever since Tony left for New York City about Gina. Gina has vanished but Mama Montana knows where she is; she followed Gina to a palatial estate at 409 Citrus Drive. If Tony were not keyed up enough after the debacle in the Big Apple with Alberto, his brotherly rage asserts itself and he heads to the estate. Manny appears at the door and Gina looks down at her new husband and her brother from a balcony, but it is too late. Tony's rage explodes and he shoots Manny twice before he learns from Gina that they have been married and wanted to surprise Tony. Talk about a surprise that shatters somebody's life, Tony realizes what he has done and his staggered by killing his oldest friend. When his bodyguards drive Gina and he back to the house, Tony looks terrible.

The themes of trust, greed, betrayal and cocaine abuse permeate Oliver Stone's elaborate screenplay and he has written some memorable lines of dialogue. "Nothing exceeds like excess," Elvira observes as she snorts some coke. Stone, who later became a notable film director himself with "Platoon" and "JFK," wrote "Scarface" after he wrote "Conan the Barbarian" for director John Milius and before he wrote "Year of the Dragon" for director Michael Cimino. If you watch "Scarface" enough, you'll notice that the film contains a wealth of irony. The scene at Lopez Motors when Lopez begs Tony not to kill him is a perfect example. Tony doesn't kill Lopez, he has Manny knock him off. The film is not without its moments of humor--few and far between--as when Manny tries his tongue action on a bikini-clad Caucasian female. At one point, Tony puts on a woman's hat to make Elvira laugh at him. The performances are all excellent, especially Loggia. De Palma and Stone carefully groom their protagonist Tony Montana who seems like an okay but abrasive guy until he shows a genuinely nasty side of his personality that involves being a little more than protective of his younger sister Gina. Tony doesn't want anybody to lay a hand on his sister. Squeamish people should probably avoid this trigger-happy, shoot'em up saga, especially the rather gruesome chainsaw scene in the bathroom of a motel with the Colombian drug smugglers.The finale at the Scarface residence is terrific!

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE A-TEAM'' (2010)

Anybody who enjoyed the landmark NBC-TV action series “The A-Team” will probably want to see new big-screen adaptation. “Smokin’ Aces” director Joe Carnahan and scenarists Skip Woods and Brian Bloom have adhered to both the spirit and formula of the George Peppard classic. Our original heroes were elusive, but wrongly-convicted government fugitives on the lam, one jump ahead of military authorities, and the film “The A-Team” sticks to that premise like glue. Although the series that co-starred Mr. T was set against Vietnam, Carnahan and his scribes have updated the storyline so the action occurs in Iraq. Since more than twenty years has elapsed since the series left the air, Twentieth Century Fox must have decided that the movie do double-duty as an origins outing rather than a sequel. After all, contemporary audiences probably weren’t watching television when the original series aired from 1983 to 1987. Liam Neeson of “Taken” quite capably takes over the role that George Peppard originated. Bradley Cooper of “The Hangover” steps easily into Dirk Benedict’s shoes as ‘Faceman.’ Newbie Sharlto Copley of “District 9” is every bit as loony tunes as Dwight Schultz was as the harebrained Murdock. Finally, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson plays ghetto-tough B.A. Baracus, the role that made Laurence Tureaud into an overnight sensation as Mr. T. Essentially, “The A-Team” (**** out of ****) qualifies as a prequel to the television series. The filmmakers show how the eponymous foursome met and wound up in the dire predicament that led to their weekly exploits.

“The A-Team” concerns honor, deception, betrayal, lies, and revenge. Colonel Hannibal Smith, a U.S. Army Ranger, is getting the pulp smashed out of him as the action unfolds in gritty Mexico. A corrupt Mexican policeman laughs at Hannibal because our hero handed over a bundle of greenbacks to a dirty cop. They cannot get Hannibal to cough up anything but blood, so they decide to ice him. They try to kill him with his own pistol, but Hannibal has removed the firing pin, and the corrupt cop doesn’t want his henchman to shoot him with his own gun because he fears that U.S. authorities will trace the killing back to them. They leave Hannibal with his impaired firearm and turn two vicious dogs loose on him. Before the dogs can reach him, Hannibal reassembles his weapon and his waiting for the mutts. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck is tied up and stuck in the middle of several tires while a higher corrupt cop, General Javier Tuco (Yul Vazquez of "American Gangster") wants to know who the pretty boy is working for. They plan to strung Peck up, and General Tuco is furious because Faceman had sex with his wife. B.A. Baracus is cruising through the countryside in his signature black mini-van when he happens upon an escaped Hannibal. They share U.S. Ranger tattoos and bond, after Hannibal pumps a slug into him. Just as the villains are about to hang Peck, Hannibal and B.A. arrive like the cavalry in the nick of time. Afterward, our heroes grip each other’s hands and set off to a hospital to pick up Murdock. The angry Tuco masses his forces and retaliates with greater firepower. Our protagonists spring Murdock from the hospital, and he flies them out in a Red Cross helicopter, only to discover that another chopper armed with missiles is pursuing them. Murdock performs some aerodynamically impossible stunts to elude the missiles. This entire, prolonged, bullet-riddled, action-packed sequence with the main credit titles popping up occasionally against the scenery and the gunfire resembles the pre-credit sequence from a James Bond escapade. Carnahan never lets the action stall for a moment and he adopts a storytelling strategy that keeps audiences up to snuff with the “A-Team’s” shenanigans. Basically, Carnahan lets the characters explain what they plan to do and shows them carrying out the plan as they explain it. The recent "Sherlock Holmes" movie did the same thing.

The story lunges ahead eight years into the future after our heroes have completed 80 missions. The setting is Iraq after the war has concluded. Hannibal and his men are considered the best special operations unit in the U.S. military. Hannibal has caught wind of a hush-hush, top-secret operation that he feels only his elite quartet can handle. It seems that terrorists in Baghdad have obtained stolen U.S. Mint printing plates and have run off over $1 billion worth of $100 bills. The bigger diplomatic picture prohibits Hannibal’s oldest friend, General Morrison (Gerald McRaney of CBS-TV’s “Simon & Simon”), from issuing Hannibal official orders to recover both the plates and the money. Instead, Morrison appears to have struck a deal with a ruthless band of mercenaries called Black Forest, led by Pike (Brian Bloom of “Terminal”), who have no qualms about murder as long as they are paid in full. Meantime, our heroes go in, snatch the plates and a trailer-load of counterfeit currency. All too suddenly, everything goes south for Hannibal and his team. An explosion obliterates the trailer, and Morrison dies in another explosion himself. Our heroes are arrested for disobeying orders. Everybody, including one of Peck’s ex-girlfriends, Captain Charisa Sosa (sexy Jessica Biel of “Stealth”), believes that Hannibal’s team and Pike’s gunmen collaborated on the mission. The Army court-martials the quartet and sends them off to serve stretches in different prisons. Hannibal refuses to accept this miscarriage of justice and finds himself an ally in Lynch (Patrick Wilson of "Watchmen") a mysterious C.I.A. agent. Although he is incarcerated in a top military lock-up, Hannibal has been cooking up a plan when he meets with Lynch. In no time at all, our heroes escape from prison and go after Pike.

Hollywood has struggled without success to resurrect other televisions series, but they have failed more often than not and failed miserably. “Starsky and Hutch,” “Wild Wild West,” “I Spy,” “The Avengers,” and “The Mod Squad” were catastrophes. Happily, “The A-Team” is a straightforward, larger-than-life, high-octane, action movie that never wears out its welcome. Moreover, “The A-Team” is better than its predecessor. Predictable for the most part, it is nevertheless an amusing as well as absorbing, with terrific performances, snappy dialogue, and a sense of audacity. The biggest differences between the PG-13 rated “A-Team” and the original series is that people die, and the big-screen adaptation adopts a grittier approach. Of course, “The A-Team” is just another big, noisy, slam-bang actioneers, but these Carnahan and company know how to slam and bang! They haven’t overlooked anything in terms of hardware so “The A-Team” looks as slick and sophisticated as a James Bond extravaganza. They have also jammed in enough intrigue for a Jason Bourne thriller. This explosive adventure opus has crowd pleaser branded on it with its international locations, high voltage action sequences, and murderous villains.

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 ''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 "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 ''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.