No, surgeons cannot carve your face off and graft it onto somebody else like they do to John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in “Face/Off,” a provocative, high-voltage crime thriller. Surgeons may eventually perfect this operation, but for now it is impossible. Just because real surgeons cannot cut off faces and slap them onto other people, however, need not deter their ersatz Hollywood counterparts. Face swapping makes for an audacious movie premise, especially when it plays a key part in the razzle-dazzle, bullet-riddled duel of champions from celebrated Hong Kong action helmer John Woo. If you’ve seen the Jean-Claude Van Damme thriller “Hard Target” or the previous Travolta epic “Broken Arrow,” you’ve been Woo-ed. If you’ve never rented Woo’s super-charged video classics, such as “The Killer,” “A Better Tomorrow,” and “Hard Boiled,” you’ve missed some of the coolest thrillers since “Miami Vice” left the airwaves.
Nicolas Cage is cast as the insanely evil terrorist Castor Troy. Troy shoots Federal Agent Sean Archer (John Travolta of “Broken Arrow”), but his bullet passes through Archer and kills Archer’s young son Michael. Archer has made it his crusade to capture Castor Troy. Six year later, Archer catches up with him. Castor has just planted a bomb with a plague that’s “a tad worse than Gulf War Syndrome.” Before Castor can fly away, a task force of choppers, cars, and SWAT sharpshooters converge on the airport. This scene evokes memories of the Bond movie “License to Kill.” Like the Bond villain, Castor finds his jet stopped and the Feds swarming over it. He manages to kill a few before he is trapped in the deadly draft of a wind tunnel.
Everybody cheers Sean Archer. Castor lies in a coma, while his brother Pollux Troy (Alessandro Nivola in an effective performance) rots in prison. When the Feds inspect Troy’s plane, they discover a computer disc and learn about a dedly bomb. Just when Archer thought it was safe to cross the street, BOOM! An initial dragnet of Castor’s accomplices yields a date, but Pollus refuses to talk. At least to anyone other than his brother Castor. That’s when a black bag, super-secret operation is mounted. Hollis Miller (CCH Pounders of “RoboCop 3”) persuades Archer to swap mugs with Troy. With the specter of a devastating plague in L.A., Archer consent to their harebrained scheme.
The ingenious Mike Werb and Michael Colleary screenplay piles on absurdities galore with the same reckless abandon that some fast food restaurants heap on the lettuce, pickles, and tomatoes. “Face/Off” (***1/2 out of ****) spins itself off of the well worn plot when the good guy has to go so deep undercover that the only people who can help him are the first ones who the villains slay. If you’ve seen Burt Reynolds in Joseph Sargent’s “White Lightning” (1973), or Paul Newman in John Huston’s “The MacKintosh Man” (1973), or Johnny Depp in the recent Al Pacino caper “Donnie Brasco,” you know the plot basics. “Face/Off” is an unbelievable thriller that dresses itself up with realism. Even if half of the stuff in “Face/Off” couldn’t happen, director John Woo stages it so that it looks not only pictorially possible but visually splendid. The idea that John Travolta and Nicolas Cage can swap bodies is hokum of a clever but far-fetched nature. So the moviemakers rely on the indulgence of the audience. Of course, Travolta cannot become anything like Cage. But it’s fun to see how their characters change in this out-of-body experience. And the moviemakers go a step further when they include a surgical scene that is an homage to those old Hammer horror movies when Dr. Frankenstein dunked everything in a fish tank!
If you like movies where the heroes spend a lot of time trading shots with each other, “Face/Off” should be the right caliber for you. The arsenal of weapons is impressive; especially Castor Troy’s matched brace of gold-plated automatic pistols. Werb and Colleary chart the vendetta between Archer and Troy in a series of deliriously poetic shoot-outs that resemble a Sergio Leone extravaganza. You see bullets after they have been discharged leaving the barrel. Whenever it looks like it’s going to run out of plot, “Face/Off” loosens a burst or two of ammo in a gunfight. You get to see a lot of reloading close-ups. Every time a bullet hits anything, whatever it struck erupts into a fountain of shards. And then you have the cameras gliding through all of this mayhem with stunt people jerking and tumbling, shell casings flying, and guys dodging bullets. Woo surprisingly keeps blood and gore to a minimum.
The heroes and villains in “Face/Off” want to destroy each other. Archer is the straight-arrow hero and Troy is the villain. It’s a classic example of the struggle between good and evil. As villains go, Troy is mean to the marrow. He drips evil in a slinky, malignant way. He revels in violence for fun and profit. “Face/Off” tampers little with this image, except where Troy shows concern for his younger brother Pollux by constantly tying his shoes. When Castor gets his comeuppance, you want to cheer because he grows increasingly slimy as the plot thickens.
John Travolta alternates between jaw clenched expressions of rage and soul searching displays of agony. He allows his commitment to the law drive him beyond it. His heroism is tainted by grief for his dead son and his desire to kill Castor. This is one of Travolta’s more toxic performances, especially when he absorbs Castor’s personality.
The undersea prison in “Face/Off” is straight out of a sci-fi movie and another subtle hint about what director John Woo faced if he had remained in Hong Kong. In this prison, which is constructed of steel, the convicts wear steel boots. When a riot breaks out, the guards magnetize the convicts’ boots and zap them with cattle prods. The symbolism of “Face/Off” is fundamental. Woo shows us that there is a little good and evil in us all. When Travolta’s Archer agonizes about the plastic surgery, he says he’s being forced to break the laws that he has been sworn to uphold. He changes more than his face literally to crush evil. He proves this when he uses Castor’s henchmen against his own FBI agents who surround Castor. The filmmakers have a field day with the face symbolism here. The Archers’ use—both husband Sean and his wife—of a hand swipe over their respective faces to restore cheer to themselves in a pre-duel showdown is an example. Castor and Archer in different bodies aim their guns at each other with only a mirror standing between them. The subtle irony that they are going to shoot the evil in the mirror that each reflects but that their bullets may kill the real source of evil on the other side is pretty heavyweight stuff for a summer Hollywood blockbuster.
The worst thing you can say about “Face/Off” is that it never knows when the break it off. There are about five ballet-like staged shoot-outs between Travolta and Cage. Each gunfight resembles pyrotechnical pistolero polkas complete with fireball explosions. Everybody sprays hail storms of lead and everything get the confetti shot out of it. As the reigning maestro of movie violence, Woo has few equals. “Face/Off” emerges as an acrobatic ode to male violence. There is a frantic boat chase with a subsequent fireball explosion, and a prison riot and their portrayal are so fanciful that you forget that you’re watching a crime thriller.
For those who demand happy endings, “Face/Off” features a happy ending. The film also contains some socially approved messages which right-wing critics will no doubt overlook. Characters in “Face/Off” who smoke cigarettes are warned that tobacco products will kill them. A little boy is reprimanded for playing with a gun. Finally, “Face/Off” bristles with that signature John Woo image that seems to be plastered over every movie rental video box: a Mexican stand-off where two guys point guns at each other. If you don’t think that John Woo’s actioneers haven’t influenced Hollywood, you should now!
CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
FILM REVIEW OF ''PUBLIC ENEMIES'' (2009)
“Miami Vice” creator Michael Mann recreates the Golden Age of Bank Robbery during the Great Depression in 1933 with his latest thriller “Public Enemies” (**** out of ****) and gangsters riddle the screen with gunfire galore. This depiction of the rise to prominence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the demise of John Dillinger is based on bestseller author Bryan Burrough’s non-fiction book. “Pirates of the Caribbean” superstar Johnny Depp is cast against type as Dillinger, the sympathetic Robin Hood style desperado who acquired notoriety as ‘Public Enemy Number One.’ “Batman Begins” sensation Christian Bale impersonates the soft-spoken FBI Special Agent Melvin Purvis who brought Dillinger down. Although they drive vintage automobiles, blast away with vintage Thompson .45 caliber submachine guns, and wear vintage apparel, the characters in “Public Enemies” prove to be just as enthralling as any of Mann’s characters in his contemporary movies. Unfortunately, Mann doesn't always hit the bullseye for historical accuracy. Many of the events are reversed. For example, Pretty Boy Floyd died after John Dillinger and Melvin Purvis did not shoot him with a high-powered rifle. Similarly, Baby Face Nelson did not died before John Dillinger, but he perished long afterward. Moviegoers will cherish historical accuracy are in for several more surprises, but then "Public Enemie" is just a movie. Suffice to say, anybody who has read anything about Dillinger will not be surprised at anything that happens in this biographical epic.
“Public Enemies” opens with an interesting shoot-out at the Indiana State Penitentiary with a manacled John Dillinger getting escorted into the grim looking prison. This is the first of several surprises that occur for people who don’t know much about ‘Johnny’ Dillinger. Afterward, Dillinger and his gang arrive in East Chicago where they have bribed the local constabulary to ignore them. They also receive some favors from the local bookmakers that operate a coast-to-coast wire service link-up that relates to gambling on horse races. Mann shows Dillinger robbing banks and playing ‘spin the dial’ with bank presidents. Dillinger has men stationed out in front of the banks as inconspicuous sentinels with weapons concealed under their coats. Dillinger’s closest associate Red (Jason Clarke of “Death Race”) keeps the stopwatch running and knows when to wheel up to the front of the bank. Dillinger doesn’t take money from any of the common folk in the bank. He steals only from the banks and then he takes hostages for a ride with him to ensure that the local authorities don’t open fire on him when his gang cruises out of town.
All of this publicity aggravates FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Bill Crudup of “Watchmen” in an awesome look-alike performance) and he assigns Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale of “Terminator: Salvation”) to manage the Chicago Office with orders to capture Dillinger. Purvis’ shooting of legendary bank robber Charles ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd (Channing Tatum of “Step Up”) in an orchard is what brought him to J. Edgar’s attention. Purvis doesn’t take long to realize that Hoover’s smart young men aren’t adequate for the task, and he requests help from the Dallas FBI Office. Several tough-looking, no-nonsense customers show up in Chicago who look like they were born with badges. Charles Winstead (Stephen Lang of “Tombstone”) and his cohorts stand out from the young, buttoned down types that surround Purvis. The FBI relies on telephone wiretaps and scientific analysis to monitor the Dillinger gang. When they cannot catch the gangsters squawking on the phone, they resort to more brutal methods, such as delaying medical treatment to a wounded bank robber to learn the whereabouts of the gangsters.
Dillinger picks up coat check girl Evelyn ‘Billie’ Frechette (Oscar winning Parisian actress Marion Cotillard of "La Vie en Rose") and cannot get her out of his system even when she walks off and leaves him after their initial encounter. Dillinger pledges himself to her, but she warns him that she doesn’t want to watch him die. Things take a turn for the couple when Dillinger is captured in Tucson, Arizona, as Frechette and he are about to take a bath together and the authorities fly him back to Indiana. Dillinger’s escape from Indiana is a part of criminal history. He wielded a fake wooden gun and bluffed his way out of jail. Later, he hooks up with Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham of “Gangs of New York”) to knock over a ripe bank in Sioux Falls with $800-thousand in its vault. Everything backfires on Dillinger and Nelson. They lug off barely $30-grand and then Purvis and his men surround the inn where the gang has taken refuge and a major firefight erupts with several gangsters dying in a blaze of gunfire.
Johnny Depp bears a closer resemblance to John Dillinger than Christian Bale does to Melvin Purvis. Bale is actually taller than Purvis. Dillinger was idolized by many during the Depression and he strove to stay in the limelight so that the common people would harbor him when he was on the lam. According to Mann’s version of history, Dillinger fell not only because of the persistence of Melvin Purvis and the FBI, but also because Dillinger brought too much heat onto his fellow criminals in the coast-to-coast racing rackets after Congress passed legislation against interstate crime. The cast is first-rate throughout “Public Enemies.” Mind you, “Public Enemies” doesn’t lionize Dillinger to the degree that director Arthur Penn did for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in “Bonnie & Clyde,” but we get glimpses of Dillinger’s celebrity status when the Feds fly him back to Indiana.
“Public Enemies” ranks as the best gangster picture since Brian de Palma’s “The Untouchables.” The real curiosity is the R-rating that “Public Enemies” drew when it doesn’t contain half as much violence and gore as the most recent “Punisher” actioneer. The shoot-outs are noisy but relatively bloodless, though there is an interrogation scene where a detective roughs up a woman. Incidentally, many of the scenes were lensed on the actual locations where this story transpired.
“Public Enemies” opens with an interesting shoot-out at the Indiana State Penitentiary with a manacled John Dillinger getting escorted into the grim looking prison. This is the first of several surprises that occur for people who don’t know much about ‘Johnny’ Dillinger. Afterward, Dillinger and his gang arrive in East Chicago where they have bribed the local constabulary to ignore them. They also receive some favors from the local bookmakers that operate a coast-to-coast wire service link-up that relates to gambling on horse races. Mann shows Dillinger robbing banks and playing ‘spin the dial’ with bank presidents. Dillinger has men stationed out in front of the banks as inconspicuous sentinels with weapons concealed under their coats. Dillinger’s closest associate Red (Jason Clarke of “Death Race”) keeps the stopwatch running and knows when to wheel up to the front of the bank. Dillinger doesn’t take money from any of the common folk in the bank. He steals only from the banks and then he takes hostages for a ride with him to ensure that the local authorities don’t open fire on him when his gang cruises out of town.
All of this publicity aggravates FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Bill Crudup of “Watchmen” in an awesome look-alike performance) and he assigns Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale of “Terminator: Salvation”) to manage the Chicago Office with orders to capture Dillinger. Purvis’ shooting of legendary bank robber Charles ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd (Channing Tatum of “Step Up”) in an orchard is what brought him to J. Edgar’s attention. Purvis doesn’t take long to realize that Hoover’s smart young men aren’t adequate for the task, and he requests help from the Dallas FBI Office. Several tough-looking, no-nonsense customers show up in Chicago who look like they were born with badges. Charles Winstead (Stephen Lang of “Tombstone”) and his cohorts stand out from the young, buttoned down types that surround Purvis. The FBI relies on telephone wiretaps and scientific analysis to monitor the Dillinger gang. When they cannot catch the gangsters squawking on the phone, they resort to more brutal methods, such as delaying medical treatment to a wounded bank robber to learn the whereabouts of the gangsters.
Dillinger picks up coat check girl Evelyn ‘Billie’ Frechette (Oscar winning Parisian actress Marion Cotillard of "La Vie en Rose") and cannot get her out of his system even when she walks off and leaves him after their initial encounter. Dillinger pledges himself to her, but she warns him that she doesn’t want to watch him die. Things take a turn for the couple when Dillinger is captured in Tucson, Arizona, as Frechette and he are about to take a bath together and the authorities fly him back to Indiana. Dillinger’s escape from Indiana is a part of criminal history. He wielded a fake wooden gun and bluffed his way out of jail. Later, he hooks up with Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham of “Gangs of New York”) to knock over a ripe bank in Sioux Falls with $800-thousand in its vault. Everything backfires on Dillinger and Nelson. They lug off barely $30-grand and then Purvis and his men surround the inn where the gang has taken refuge and a major firefight erupts with several gangsters dying in a blaze of gunfire.
Johnny Depp bears a closer resemblance to John Dillinger than Christian Bale does to Melvin Purvis. Bale is actually taller than Purvis. Dillinger was idolized by many during the Depression and he strove to stay in the limelight so that the common people would harbor him when he was on the lam. According to Mann’s version of history, Dillinger fell not only because of the persistence of Melvin Purvis and the FBI, but also because Dillinger brought too much heat onto his fellow criminals in the coast-to-coast racing rackets after Congress passed legislation against interstate crime. The cast is first-rate throughout “Public Enemies.” Mind you, “Public Enemies” doesn’t lionize Dillinger to the degree that director Arthur Penn did for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in “Bonnie & Clyde,” but we get glimpses of Dillinger’s celebrity status when the Feds fly him back to Indiana.
“Public Enemies” ranks as the best gangster picture since Brian de Palma’s “The Untouchables.” The real curiosity is the R-rating that “Public Enemies” drew when it doesn’t contain half as much violence and gore as the most recent “Punisher” actioneer. The shoot-outs are noisy but relatively bloodless, though there is an interrogation scene where a detective roughs up a woman. Incidentally, many of the scenes were lensed on the actual locations where this story transpired.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
FILM REVIEW OF "SOMETHING WEIRD" (1967)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, born independent filmmaker Herschel Gordon Lewis has many claims to fame. Among those accolades, many film historians cite him for creating the ‘splatter’ horror film. H.G. Lewis worked on the fringe and produced what most people derogate as ‘exploitation’ films. He acquired his reputation for “Blood Feast” (1963) and replicated the formula with two more gore features “Two Thousand Maniacs!” (1964) and “Color Me Blood Red” (1965).
Despite his recognition in the eyes of many film historians, H.G. Lewis has directed some potboilers. Budgeted at $35-thousand dollars, “Something Weird” (** out of ****)looks amateurish at times with uneven acting and sometimes out of focus, photography crops important information out of the frame. These two defects diminish what little credibility it musters from its thoroughly conventional, workman-like James F. Hurley screenplay that blends fairy tales with the modern day scourge of Communism. Don't read me wrong, however, because the murder scenes where the unknown assailant kills the women are filmed using Dutch tilt angles that make everything look askew. These scenes were superbly done and Lewis deserves applause for the way he creates an aura of unease in these sequences. However, in other scenes, either the Something Weird Video master cropped the widescreen picture or Lewis did not shoot the scenes wide enough to include all of the actors. Examine the scene when Mitchell wrestles with the severed power cable.
You can tell when Lewis and Hurley are slipping in exposition (information that we need to know about the action and the characters)into scenes that are designed to convey nothing but data. The theme that an individual have to pay for something to get something recurs throughout "Something Weird." Mitchell acquires his psychic ability but he also gets a hideously ugly face until the witch offers to fix his face. Mitchell has to pledge his love to her so that he can get a new face.
Basically, "Something Weird" makes you want to laugh rather than cringe when its melodramatics turn to antics. Lewis appears to be channeling Bill Gaines' notorious EC Comics. For example, the fairy tale subplot about an evil witch falls apart due to childish, Halloween make-up on the actress. It looks as if Lewis and Hurley decided to throw caution to the wind and camp up the witch factor. "Something Weird" comes off being more like "Something Wan" until the Vaudville witch crops up. Clocking in at 80 minutes, “Something Weird” remains mercifully brief and tosses in the legitimate use of the narcotic LSD in a plot about an individual burned so severely in an accident that he acquires a supernatural psychic ability.
“Something Weird” opens with a brilliantly lensed crime sequence. A man whose identity is concealed by the camera to generate tension strangles a beautiful young woman to death in what appears to be an alley. This serial killer of sorts will figure prominently later on in the story. Afterward, the scene changes to a martial arts studio where an instructor comments about his student’s improper exhibition of karate when breaking a board. Dr. Alex Jordan (William Brooker) has the instructor, Kim, show him the proper way. Later, we learn that Jordan is a womanizing James Bond type government man.
The scene shifts to an exterior where an electrician plunges from a telephone pole, hits the roof and then falls to the ground with a severed power cable dangling near him. His body flops involuntarily from the electrical charge and several other men surround him. One man, Cronin Mitchell (Tony McCabe), pulls the cable away from the prostrate body, but Mitchell suffers injury when the cable gives him a jolt of electricity and knocks him down and out. An old-fashioned style ambulance with red lights arrives and a medical crew hauls Mitchell’s body off on a stretcher to the hospital. Interestingly, the medical techicians ignore the other body on the scene.
H.G. Lewis pauses the narrative at this point to linger on a long shot of a cloudy sky and the following narration is heard. “Science knows that people contact the world around them by their five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. But many times a person reports an awareness of a happening when none of these channels could possibly be involved. This then is the sixth sense, the extra sensory perception, commonly known as ESP. The Russians for the past decade have intensified their experimentation in extra sensory perception research. They are working and experimenting on a crash program whose goal is to surpass America in the field of parapsychology. Dr. Alex Jordan, a renowned parapsychologist, is employed by a branch of the federal government for the top secret work in ESP and its relationship to American defense. This organization is determined that the United States will be the first to communicate with other planets, the first to advance in the field of ESP, and the last to perish in an all out nuclear war.” With this narration, Lewis has added a modicum of significance to “Something Weird” and turned it into a Cold War thriller.
The next scene finds Mitchell wallowing restlessly in bed in a dimly lighted hospital room, suffering from the memory of the accident. Lewis then cuts to a professor’s office at a nearby university where Mitchell’s doctor, Dr. White, has gone to consult about Mitch’s psychic ability. The professor is impressed with Mitchell. “Not doubt about it, Dr. White, Cronin Mitchells Now, it may be that his accident was the cause, I don’t know. Or it may be the electrical current he was subjected to. We have several theories.” Nevertheless, the skeptical Dr. White doesn’t share the professor’s opinion. He thinks Mitchell is a fake. “I have tested literally thousands of these psychics and he ran through my deck of ESP cards like it was child’s play.”
Later, Mitch proves his paranormal ability with a nurse as he guesses correctly each playing card she selects from a deck. She inquires about her future and then Mitchell makes a pass at her. She admonishes him for his inappropriate behavior and switches on the lights. The brightly lighted room propels Mitchell into the bathroom where he gazes in terror at his scarred face in the mirror. “You’re disgusting. No one can look at you, not even yourself” the nurse shrinks in revulsion. “A freak like you should have died!”
Eventually, Mitch makes a living where he reveals the future for $2 dollars a reading per client. He sports sunglasses and a dark veil so nobody can see his disfigured face. After work one day, he is surprised when the Bible of Witchcraft has materialized in his hands. Suddenly, a long gray haired crone in a yellow dress appears out of nowhere. Mitchell’s scarred face disturbs him so deeply that he listens to a Faustian proposition that this witch, Ellen (Elizabeth Lee), makes that he cannot refuse. “Become my lover then you shall have your pretty face.” Naturally, Mitchell agrees.
The complication is Ellen looks gorgeous to everybody else except Mitchell since he can see what she really looks like—a hag. The vain Cronin Mitchell becomes a celebrated psychic and appears on television shows. Dramatic events occur when Cronin tries to identify the serial killer with his psychic abilities in the small town of Jefferson, Wisconsin. The police cannot apprehend a serial slayer who has slain seven women in a month and has the local populace up in arms.
Meanwhile, the government dispatches Dr. Jordan to assist the Jefferson, Wisconsin, police. Jordan's superior wants Mitchell because he may serve as a new arsenal in the Cold War against the Soviets. Jordan emerges as an American version of James Bond. When he exits his superior's office, he makes small talk with his boss's secretary, kisses her and calls her 'pussycat.' Jordan mets Mitchell at the police chief's office and offers Mitchell LSD as a part of a question and answer session that he plans to have with the psychic. Complications arise when Jordan grows enamored with the witch, while Mitchell has an liaison for another woman. Jordan tries to force himself on Ellen and she bites his hand. Later that evening, in his motel room, Jordan is attacked by his bed covers in a scene that looks just plain absurd. Matters are helped when we catch a glimpse of Ellen in her haggy witch mode laughing at Jordan. The surprise ending includes three revelations. One of the cops is the insane woman killer and the jealous Jordan lets the crazy cop assassinate Mitchell so that he--Jordan--can have Ellen. Later, after Jordan admits to Ellen that he gave the killer time enough to ice Mitchell, Ellen reverts to hag mode and Jordan freaks out. He tries to escape from Ellen, but he slips and falls on a flamng smudge pot and burns half of his face. Ellen arrives and assures him that she can make him as good as new. "Something Weird" comes full circle.
“Something Weird” isn’t top-notch H.G. Lewi but it is entertaining nonsense. Indeed, it may strike most people who know nothing about his prestige as unintentional, half-baked, quasi-sci-fi/horror hokum. William Brooker gives a stilted performance, while the rest of the cast vary.
Despite his recognition in the eyes of many film historians, H.G. Lewis has directed some potboilers. Budgeted at $35-thousand dollars, “Something Weird” (** out of ****)looks amateurish at times with uneven acting and sometimes out of focus, photography crops important information out of the frame. These two defects diminish what little credibility it musters from its thoroughly conventional, workman-like James F. Hurley screenplay that blends fairy tales with the modern day scourge of Communism. Don't read me wrong, however, because the murder scenes where the unknown assailant kills the women are filmed using Dutch tilt angles that make everything look askew. These scenes were superbly done and Lewis deserves applause for the way he creates an aura of unease in these sequences. However, in other scenes, either the Something Weird Video master cropped the widescreen picture or Lewis did not shoot the scenes wide enough to include all of the actors. Examine the scene when Mitchell wrestles with the severed power cable.
You can tell when Lewis and Hurley are slipping in exposition (information that we need to know about the action and the characters)into scenes that are designed to convey nothing but data. The theme that an individual have to pay for something to get something recurs throughout "Something Weird." Mitchell acquires his psychic ability but he also gets a hideously ugly face until the witch offers to fix his face. Mitchell has to pledge his love to her so that he can get a new face.
Basically, "Something Weird" makes you want to laugh rather than cringe when its melodramatics turn to antics. Lewis appears to be channeling Bill Gaines' notorious EC Comics. For example, the fairy tale subplot about an evil witch falls apart due to childish, Halloween make-up on the actress. It looks as if Lewis and Hurley decided to throw caution to the wind and camp up the witch factor. "Something Weird" comes off being more like "Something Wan" until the Vaudville witch crops up. Clocking in at 80 minutes, “Something Weird” remains mercifully brief and tosses in the legitimate use of the narcotic LSD in a plot about an individual burned so severely in an accident that he acquires a supernatural psychic ability.
“Something Weird” opens with a brilliantly lensed crime sequence. A man whose identity is concealed by the camera to generate tension strangles a beautiful young woman to death in what appears to be an alley. This serial killer of sorts will figure prominently later on in the story. Afterward, the scene changes to a martial arts studio where an instructor comments about his student’s improper exhibition of karate when breaking a board. Dr. Alex Jordan (William Brooker) has the instructor, Kim, show him the proper way. Later, we learn that Jordan is a womanizing James Bond type government man.
The scene shifts to an exterior where an electrician plunges from a telephone pole, hits the roof and then falls to the ground with a severed power cable dangling near him. His body flops involuntarily from the electrical charge and several other men surround him. One man, Cronin Mitchell (Tony McCabe), pulls the cable away from the prostrate body, but Mitchell suffers injury when the cable gives him a jolt of electricity and knocks him down and out. An old-fashioned style ambulance with red lights arrives and a medical crew hauls Mitchell’s body off on a stretcher to the hospital. Interestingly, the medical techicians ignore the other body on the scene.
H.G. Lewis pauses the narrative at this point to linger on a long shot of a cloudy sky and the following narration is heard. “Science knows that people contact the world around them by their five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. But many times a person reports an awareness of a happening when none of these channels could possibly be involved. This then is the sixth sense, the extra sensory perception, commonly known as ESP. The Russians for the past decade have intensified their experimentation in extra sensory perception research. They are working and experimenting on a crash program whose goal is to surpass America in the field of parapsychology. Dr. Alex Jordan, a renowned parapsychologist, is employed by a branch of the federal government for the top secret work in ESP and its relationship to American defense. This organization is determined that the United States will be the first to communicate with other planets, the first to advance in the field of ESP, and the last to perish in an all out nuclear war.” With this narration, Lewis has added a modicum of significance to “Something Weird” and turned it into a Cold War thriller.
The next scene finds Mitchell wallowing restlessly in bed in a dimly lighted hospital room, suffering from the memory of the accident. Lewis then cuts to a professor’s office at a nearby university where Mitchell’s doctor, Dr. White, has gone to consult about Mitch’s psychic ability. The professor is impressed with Mitchell. “Not doubt about it, Dr. White, Cronin Mitchells Now, it may be that his accident was the cause, I don’t know. Or it may be the electrical current he was subjected to. We have several theories.” Nevertheless, the skeptical Dr. White doesn’t share the professor’s opinion. He thinks Mitchell is a fake. “I have tested literally thousands of these psychics and he ran through my deck of ESP cards like it was child’s play.”
Later, Mitch proves his paranormal ability with a nurse as he guesses correctly each playing card she selects from a deck. She inquires about her future and then Mitchell makes a pass at her. She admonishes him for his inappropriate behavior and switches on the lights. The brightly lighted room propels Mitchell into the bathroom where he gazes in terror at his scarred face in the mirror. “You’re disgusting. No one can look at you, not even yourself” the nurse shrinks in revulsion. “A freak like you should have died!”
Eventually, Mitch makes a living where he reveals the future for $2 dollars a reading per client. He sports sunglasses and a dark veil so nobody can see his disfigured face. After work one day, he is surprised when the Bible of Witchcraft has materialized in his hands. Suddenly, a long gray haired crone in a yellow dress appears out of nowhere. Mitchell’s scarred face disturbs him so deeply that he listens to a Faustian proposition that this witch, Ellen (Elizabeth Lee), makes that he cannot refuse. “Become my lover then you shall have your pretty face.” Naturally, Mitchell agrees.
The complication is Ellen looks gorgeous to everybody else except Mitchell since he can see what she really looks like—a hag. The vain Cronin Mitchell becomes a celebrated psychic and appears on television shows. Dramatic events occur when Cronin tries to identify the serial killer with his psychic abilities in the small town of Jefferson, Wisconsin. The police cannot apprehend a serial slayer who has slain seven women in a month and has the local populace up in arms.
Meanwhile, the government dispatches Dr. Jordan to assist the Jefferson, Wisconsin, police. Jordan's superior wants Mitchell because he may serve as a new arsenal in the Cold War against the Soviets. Jordan emerges as an American version of James Bond. When he exits his superior's office, he makes small talk with his boss's secretary, kisses her and calls her 'pussycat.' Jordan mets Mitchell at the police chief's office and offers Mitchell LSD as a part of a question and answer session that he plans to have with the psychic. Complications arise when Jordan grows enamored with the witch, while Mitchell has an liaison for another woman. Jordan tries to force himself on Ellen and she bites his hand. Later that evening, in his motel room, Jordan is attacked by his bed covers in a scene that looks just plain absurd. Matters are helped when we catch a glimpse of Ellen in her haggy witch mode laughing at Jordan. The surprise ending includes three revelations. One of the cops is the insane woman killer and the jealous Jordan lets the crazy cop assassinate Mitchell so that he--Jordan--can have Ellen. Later, after Jordan admits to Ellen that he gave the killer time enough to ice Mitchell, Ellen reverts to hag mode and Jordan freaks out. He tries to escape from Ellen, but he slips and falls on a flamng smudge pot and burns half of his face. Ellen arrives and assures him that she can make him as good as new. "Something Weird" comes full circle.
“Something Weird” isn’t top-notch H.G. Lewi but it is entertaining nonsense. Indeed, it may strike most people who know nothing about his prestige as unintentional, half-baked, quasi-sci-fi/horror hokum. William Brooker gives a stilted performance, while the rest of the cast vary.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
FILM REVIEW OF "BABYLON A.D." (2008)
“Babylon A.D.” (** out of ****) appears in two versions on its initial DVD release with different endings. First, the 90-minute American theatrical version is available on one side with the added vehicular chase and the hero with the Babylon babies , while the so-called “raw and uncut” version screened for French and German audiences is on the flip side without the Babylon babies. Everybody who has read anybody about this troubled sci-fi saga should know by now that Twentieth Century Fox–because the film ran over budget as well as over its shooting schedule–slashed it to pack in as many showings as possible. Not surprisingly, director Mathieu Kassovitz went public and disowned the film. We’ll probably never know the truth about this visually dazzling but loquacious road movie that boasts several interesting set-pieces. “Babylon A.D.” qualifies as a thoroughly average actioneer with rugged Vin Diesel enlivening things a little with help from Michelle Yeoh.. According to Kassovitz, Fox lopped off 70 minutes, which may account for the film’s abruptness. Altogether, “Babylon A.D.” amounts to the variation on director Sergio Martino’s post-apocalyptic thriller “After the Fall of New York,” about a futuristic warrior that escorts the last virgin in the world to New York to breed children. Imagine high tech “Frankenstein” taking place in a “Blade Runner” setting with a dash of “Strange Days” swirled in for flavor and you’ll have a semblance of an idea about this hokum that concerns a geneticist who has created a Virgin Mary to give a religious corporation a publicity boost.
Both versions of “Babylon A.D.” both open with our hero’s voice-over narration about saving the planet. The 90-minute version delves into Toorop’s background, while the European version is minimal with no reference to his personal code. We get a God’s eye view of planet Earth from outer space and zoom progressively into an overhead shot of our hero in a Gotham intersection discussing his death. Afterward, Kassovitz alters the chronology and sends us six days into the past before Toorop died.
Toorop (Vin Diesel of “xXx”) is a heavily tattooed, veteran mercenary hiding in New Serbia sometime in the future. Weary of war, he only wants to return to his family’s farm in upstate New York. Toorop is quite fearless, too. Early on he confronts an arms dealer who sold him a defective gun and gets his money back while groups of heavily armed people observe him. Later, Toorop has settled down to a meal that he has cooked in his shabby apartment when his instincts warn him. He ducks as an explosion detonates and armed gunmen rush into his apartment. The scene resembles Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” where the police storm an apartment and arrest a husband while the wife watches in horror. Toorop discovers that the invasion team leader is an old nemesis who used to shoot babies in Sudan, Karl (stunt man Radek Bruna), who he promptly kills while a dozen or more laser sights illuminate his physique.
The invaders escort Toorop at gunpoint to an armored vehicle. He talks about a job with Gorsky (Gérard Depardieu of “Green Card”), a loathsome bottom feeding creep. Depardieu has been dubbed and the special effects people have slapped on a fat, pudgy nose. Neither Gorsky nor Toorop trust each other. Gorsky needs somebody to smuggle a girl into America. He pays Toorop a half-million dollars to take this teenager, Aurora (French actress Mélanie Thierry of “Chrysalis”), to America. Although the Americans have classified Toorop as a terrorist, Gorsky hands him a hypodermic device that will allow him to enter the States without fear of arrest.
Toorop leaves Gorsky and tries to light a cigarette. This is a running joke because Toorop cannot find anything with which to ignite his cigarette. A large helicopter with a four-door limo held to it by a huge magnet (think of the 007 movie “You Only Live Twice”) hovers overhead, and Toorop climbs in the back and it flies him away to the Noelite Convent in Mongolia. Toorop meets Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh of “Tomorrow Never Dies”) and she stipulates three rules. First, she must accompany Aurora. Second, Aurora must avoid all contact with the real world. Third, Toorop must not use profanity. Toorop laughs off Rebeka’s demands but lets her join them. Our heroes reach a train station in Troitsk, Kazakhstan, at the Russian border, and ride the rails to the Bering Straits. They have two minutes to board a Russian submarine. To avoid satellite surveillance systems, the Russian submarine submerges with people still climbing aboard. Aurora tries to take command of the sub, but Toorop thwarts her efforts. Neither Sister Rebeka nor Toorop can figure out why the teenager can operate a 30-year old submarine. Rebeka reveals that Aurora spoke 19 different languages when she was two years old. Later, our heroes deploy on ski bikes and dodge missile-laden, machine gun equipped drones that try to pick them. Toorop is wounded and his pal Finn (Mark Strong) wants to let him die, kill Rebeka, and take Aurora. Toorop surprises Finn and kills him. “Don’t trust anybody,” Toorop quips. They arrive in Canada and then fly to New York where Toorop is supposed to hand Aurora over to the religious zealots Noelites.
“Gothika” director Mathieu Kassovitz and scenarists Eric Besnard and Joseph Simas have contrived an ordinary but visually exotic adventure that doesn’t deviate from the formula one iota. Ostensibly, this futuristic thriller was derived from Maurice Georges Dantec’s novel “Babylon Babies.” Indeed, the film bristles with violence, i.e., the usual small arms fire, fistfights, and explosions, but nothing really horrifying happens. Heads are not blown off bodies, limbs torn off, or anything like that. What can you make of a Vin Diesel actioneer when the hero skins and cooks an animal and then before digging into it pauses to pray.
In other words, “Babylon A.D.” is an offbeat tale set in a dystopian future. Again, there are several interesting set-pieces. The two-minute rush to board a Russian sub, the helicopter that lugs the car, etc. all looks cool, but any exposition or background has been jettisoned. We know precious little about the characters, for example, Toorop’s cynicism and the new world. Essentially, in cutting down the plot, Fox destroyed any continuity and “Babylon A.D.” makes little sense, even with its last minute revelations about a power hungry religious zealot.
Both versions of “Babylon A.D.” both open with our hero’s voice-over narration about saving the planet. The 90-minute version delves into Toorop’s background, while the European version is minimal with no reference to his personal code. We get a God’s eye view of planet Earth from outer space and zoom progressively into an overhead shot of our hero in a Gotham intersection discussing his death. Afterward, Kassovitz alters the chronology and sends us six days into the past before Toorop died.
Toorop (Vin Diesel of “xXx”) is a heavily tattooed, veteran mercenary hiding in New Serbia sometime in the future. Weary of war, he only wants to return to his family’s farm in upstate New York. Toorop is quite fearless, too. Early on he confronts an arms dealer who sold him a defective gun and gets his money back while groups of heavily armed people observe him. Later, Toorop has settled down to a meal that he has cooked in his shabby apartment when his instincts warn him. He ducks as an explosion detonates and armed gunmen rush into his apartment. The scene resembles Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” where the police storm an apartment and arrest a husband while the wife watches in horror. Toorop discovers that the invasion team leader is an old nemesis who used to shoot babies in Sudan, Karl (stunt man Radek Bruna), who he promptly kills while a dozen or more laser sights illuminate his physique.
The invaders escort Toorop at gunpoint to an armored vehicle. He talks about a job with Gorsky (Gérard Depardieu of “Green Card”), a loathsome bottom feeding creep. Depardieu has been dubbed and the special effects people have slapped on a fat, pudgy nose. Neither Gorsky nor Toorop trust each other. Gorsky needs somebody to smuggle a girl into America. He pays Toorop a half-million dollars to take this teenager, Aurora (French actress Mélanie Thierry of “Chrysalis”), to America. Although the Americans have classified Toorop as a terrorist, Gorsky hands him a hypodermic device that will allow him to enter the States without fear of arrest.
Toorop leaves Gorsky and tries to light a cigarette. This is a running joke because Toorop cannot find anything with which to ignite his cigarette. A large helicopter with a four-door limo held to it by a huge magnet (think of the 007 movie “You Only Live Twice”) hovers overhead, and Toorop climbs in the back and it flies him away to the Noelite Convent in Mongolia. Toorop meets Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh of “Tomorrow Never Dies”) and she stipulates three rules. First, she must accompany Aurora. Second, Aurora must avoid all contact with the real world. Third, Toorop must not use profanity. Toorop laughs off Rebeka’s demands but lets her join them. Our heroes reach a train station in Troitsk, Kazakhstan, at the Russian border, and ride the rails to the Bering Straits. They have two minutes to board a Russian submarine. To avoid satellite surveillance systems, the Russian submarine submerges with people still climbing aboard. Aurora tries to take command of the sub, but Toorop thwarts her efforts. Neither Sister Rebeka nor Toorop can figure out why the teenager can operate a 30-year old submarine. Rebeka reveals that Aurora spoke 19 different languages when she was two years old. Later, our heroes deploy on ski bikes and dodge missile-laden, machine gun equipped drones that try to pick them. Toorop is wounded and his pal Finn (Mark Strong) wants to let him die, kill Rebeka, and take Aurora. Toorop surprises Finn and kills him. “Don’t trust anybody,” Toorop quips. They arrive in Canada and then fly to New York where Toorop is supposed to hand Aurora over to the religious zealots Noelites.
“Gothika” director Mathieu Kassovitz and scenarists Eric Besnard and Joseph Simas have contrived an ordinary but visually exotic adventure that doesn’t deviate from the formula one iota. Ostensibly, this futuristic thriller was derived from Maurice Georges Dantec’s novel “Babylon Babies.” Indeed, the film bristles with violence, i.e., the usual small arms fire, fistfights, and explosions, but nothing really horrifying happens. Heads are not blown off bodies, limbs torn off, or anything like that. What can you make of a Vin Diesel actioneer when the hero skins and cooks an animal and then before digging into it pauses to pray.
In other words, “Babylon A.D.” is an offbeat tale set in a dystopian future. Again, there are several interesting set-pieces. The two-minute rush to board a Russian sub, the helicopter that lugs the car, etc. all looks cool, but any exposition or background has been jettisoned. We know precious little about the characters, for example, Toorop’s cynicism and the new world. Essentially, in cutting down the plot, Fox destroyed any continuity and “Babylon A.D.” makes little sense, even with its last minute revelations about a power hungry religious zealot.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
FILM REVIEW OF ''EL DORADO" (1967)
“Red River” director Howard Hawks’ “El Dorado” (**** out of ****) qualifies as a leisurely, old-fashioned oater that conjures up more hilarity with its frequent comic interludes than its serious moments. Mind you, this 1967 John Wayne & Robert Mitchum western possesses a couple of unsavory moments, principally when men brandish their six-guns and blast away at each other without a qualm. The violence here is nothing compared to the sadistic Spaghetti westerns produced in Europe during the late 1960s. Anybody who enjoys Hawks’ westerns should not be surprised that Hawks and scenarist Leigh Brackett dusted off the plot to “Rio Bravo,” essentially recycled scenes and characters from that film rather than from the cited source material, the novel "The Stars in Their Courses" by Harry Brown, published in 1962. Reportedly, Hawka retained one scene from the book and fell back on "Rio Bravo." The one scene involved the shooting of Luke MacDonald.
Hawks cast Robert Mitchum as the drunken that Dean Martin had played in “Rio Bravo.” Arthur Hunnicutt takes over for Walter Brennan, while James Caan substitutes for Ricky Nelson in a different role. Hawks changed Caan’s supporting role from Nelson’s accurate shooting gunslinger to the worst shot on the frontier. As in “Rio Bravo,” the heroes hole up in a jail with a prisoner and await the arrival of the territorial lawman while the villain’s henchmen keep them bottled up in town. This time, however, John Wayne plays a drifting gunfighter with an Achilles heel, while Mitchum wears the sheriff’s badge. Hawks and Brackett whittled down the female participation to an older woman, Charlene Holt, who walks in from time to time, but never intrudes on the action like Angie Dickinson did in “Rio Bravo.” Meanwhile, a young slip of a girl, cute Michele Carey, has a somewhat bigger part as a hot-headed babe who wounds our hero and later guns down the chief villain. Nevertheless, “El Dorado” is an immensely charismatic western with clever dialogue, interesting characters, and hilarious humor. Attention deficient audiences may complain this 126 minute melodrama drags and sags when it should raise hell and holler.
Hawks and Brackett provide the ground work for the plot in the opening scene when Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum of “Cape Fear”) confronts Cole Thornton (John Wayne of “Hatari”) in the washroom of a local saloon. Cole has come to El Dorado to hire his gun out to ranch owner Bart Jason (Edward Asner of “The Satan Bug”), but Harrah dissuades him from taking the job. Harrah explains that Jason is a greedy rancher who wants to expand his spread, but he needs water. Incidentally, the Bart Jason character resembles Hawks’ “Rio Lobo” villain Ketchum in that Jason showed up in El Dorado with a lot of money when everybody else in Texas was dead broke. Harrah elaborates that Jason wants to run the cattle rancher Kevin MacDonald (R. G. Armstrong of “Ride the High Country”) out of the country because he cannot force MacDonald to sell out to him. Cole decides to accommodate Harrah and pull out. He rides out to Jason’s ranch and refuses to hire out to him. Meantime, Doc Miller (Paul Fix) has sent warning out to MacDonald that Cole Thornton is on Jason’s payroll. MacDonald and his men scatter and he leaves his youngest son Luke (Johnny Crawford of “The Rifleman”) to serve as a look-out and fire in the air if he should see Thornton.
After Cole leaves Jason’s ranch, he rides toward the place where Luke is stationed. A startled Luke awakens, leaps up and fires at Cole rather than shooting in the air. Without a second thought, Cole plugs Luke. Luke commits suicide because he has been gut shot and feels that he cannot survive such a painful wound. Cole takes Luke’s body to the MacDonald ranch. Joey MacDonald (Michele Carey of “Dirty Dingus Magee”) vows to kill Cole. She lays in ambush and wounds him. Doc Miller refuses to extract the slug because it lies too close to Cole’s spine and he fears that he would do more damage. He advises Cole to find “one of them new-fangled squirts” to remove it, “but don’t wait too long to do it.” Cole rides off to the border for a job and winds up in a border town where he runs into scar-faced killer Nelse McLeod (Christopher George of “The Rat Patrol”) and his gunmen. McLeod and his gunmen are heading for El Dorado to take the same job with Bart Jason that Cole turned down. Another young drifter, Alan Bourdillon Traherne(James Caan of “Redline 7000”) enter the cantina, picks a fight with a McLeod gunman, and kills him with a knife in a draw.
After Cole prevents Trehearne, whose nicknamed ‘Mississippi,’ from walking into an ambush by McLeod’s vengeful gunmen, the younger man becomes his sidekick. Cole advises Mississippi to get rid of his oddball hat and get a gun. Mississippi asks Cole to teach him how to shoot, but Mississippi is such a bad shot that Cole gets him a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun with the stock cut down to a plow-handle. Initially, Cole doesn’t want anything to do with Mississippi, but Mississippi knows that Cole is heading back to El Dorado. It seems that Sheriff J.P. Harrah tangled “with a wandering petticoat” and lost. Since his ill-fated romance, Harrah has retreated into a whiskey bottle and Cole fears that Harrah will prove easy prey for McLeod. When they reach El Dorado, Maudie (Charlene Holt of “Redline 7000”) brings Cole up to speed on the situation. Cole and Harrah tangle in the jail when Cole tries to awaken the drunken Harrah. Mississippi whips together a concoction to sober up Harrah and an old frontier scout Bull (seasoned character actor Arthur Hunnicutt of “The Big Sky”) helps him acquire the ingredients.
Jason’s men wound another MacDonald and Harrah takes Jason prisoner while McLeod lays siege to the jail. Cole’s Achilles heel gunshot wound strikes him at an inopportune time and McLeod takes him hostage and exchanges Cole for Jason. The heroes, both crippled from gunshot wounds, surprise McLeod and Joe mows down Jason in a savage shoot’em up. Christopher George doesn’t get much screen time but he makes a memorable villain. Hunnicutt steals the show with his homespun humor. The byplay between Wayne and Mitchum is hilarious, especially when Wayne awakens Mitchum in the jail scenes. Mitchum is quite good playing a drunk and he shares a scene in the saloon showdown with his brother.
“Bad Seed” lenser Harold Rosson gives “El Dorado” a warm, leathery look that adds atmosphere to the action. The shot where McLeod’s henchman plunges off a church belfry and falls into the camera is terrific! “Batman” composer Nelson Riddle furnishes this western with a lively jazz type orchestral score. Veteran characters Jim Davis of “Dallas” and Don Collier of “The High Chaparral” appear in supporting roles. “El Dorado” ranks as a more entertaining western that “Rio Bravo,” but “Rio Bravo” is justly considered more classical, if for nothing than he served as the inspiration for Hawks and Wayne to reteam with Brackett handling the screenplay. Hawks and Brackett dust off another scene for some of the more violent encounters in “El Dorado.” After Mississippi shoots a McLeod man, two of McLeod’s gunmen, Milt (Robert Donner) and Pedro lay outside to bushwhack Mississippi. Cole keeps Mississippi from being shot. Three-quarters to the way into the story, Cole and Mississippi chase a villain in to saloon and find Milt and Pedro waiting for them in front of a doorway. Cole pumps Milt full with three slugs before the reluctant villain agrees to exit by the rear door, only to be shot and killed by assassins waiting outside. Hawks and Brackett pulled this gag in the Humphrey Bogart film noir thriller “The Big Sleep.” The scene where a hung0ver Harrah pursues a wounded gunman into the saloon is similar to a “Rio Bravo” confrontation where Dude (Dean Martin) pursued a wounded killer into a saloon. The scene where James Caan’s knife-throwing sidekick pronounces his name for the benefit of a fuzzy-headed Harrah is side-splitting stuff.
“El Dorado” is worth seeing several times over.
Hawks cast Robert Mitchum as the drunken that Dean Martin had played in “Rio Bravo.” Arthur Hunnicutt takes over for Walter Brennan, while James Caan substitutes for Ricky Nelson in a different role. Hawks changed Caan’s supporting role from Nelson’s accurate shooting gunslinger to the worst shot on the frontier. As in “Rio Bravo,” the heroes hole up in a jail with a prisoner and await the arrival of the territorial lawman while the villain’s henchmen keep them bottled up in town. This time, however, John Wayne plays a drifting gunfighter with an Achilles heel, while Mitchum wears the sheriff’s badge. Hawks and Brackett whittled down the female participation to an older woman, Charlene Holt, who walks in from time to time, but never intrudes on the action like Angie Dickinson did in “Rio Bravo.” Meanwhile, a young slip of a girl, cute Michele Carey, has a somewhat bigger part as a hot-headed babe who wounds our hero and later guns down the chief villain. Nevertheless, “El Dorado” is an immensely charismatic western with clever dialogue, interesting characters, and hilarious humor. Attention deficient audiences may complain this 126 minute melodrama drags and sags when it should raise hell and holler.
Hawks and Brackett provide the ground work for the plot in the opening scene when Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum of “Cape Fear”) confronts Cole Thornton (John Wayne of “Hatari”) in the washroom of a local saloon. Cole has come to El Dorado to hire his gun out to ranch owner Bart Jason (Edward Asner of “The Satan Bug”), but Harrah dissuades him from taking the job. Harrah explains that Jason is a greedy rancher who wants to expand his spread, but he needs water. Incidentally, the Bart Jason character resembles Hawks’ “Rio Lobo” villain Ketchum in that Jason showed up in El Dorado with a lot of money when everybody else in Texas was dead broke. Harrah elaborates that Jason wants to run the cattle rancher Kevin MacDonald (R. G. Armstrong of “Ride the High Country”) out of the country because he cannot force MacDonald to sell out to him. Cole decides to accommodate Harrah and pull out. He rides out to Jason’s ranch and refuses to hire out to him. Meantime, Doc Miller (Paul Fix) has sent warning out to MacDonald that Cole Thornton is on Jason’s payroll. MacDonald and his men scatter and he leaves his youngest son Luke (Johnny Crawford of “The Rifleman”) to serve as a look-out and fire in the air if he should see Thornton.
After Cole leaves Jason’s ranch, he rides toward the place where Luke is stationed. A startled Luke awakens, leaps up and fires at Cole rather than shooting in the air. Without a second thought, Cole plugs Luke. Luke commits suicide because he has been gut shot and feels that he cannot survive such a painful wound. Cole takes Luke’s body to the MacDonald ranch. Joey MacDonald (Michele Carey of “Dirty Dingus Magee”) vows to kill Cole. She lays in ambush and wounds him. Doc Miller refuses to extract the slug because it lies too close to Cole’s spine and he fears that he would do more damage. He advises Cole to find “one of them new-fangled squirts” to remove it, “but don’t wait too long to do it.” Cole rides off to the border for a job and winds up in a border town where he runs into scar-faced killer Nelse McLeod (Christopher George of “The Rat Patrol”) and his gunmen. McLeod and his gunmen are heading for El Dorado to take the same job with Bart Jason that Cole turned down. Another young drifter, Alan Bourdillon Traherne(James Caan of “Redline 7000”) enter the cantina, picks a fight with a McLeod gunman, and kills him with a knife in a draw.
After Cole prevents Trehearne, whose nicknamed ‘Mississippi,’ from walking into an ambush by McLeod’s vengeful gunmen, the younger man becomes his sidekick. Cole advises Mississippi to get rid of his oddball hat and get a gun. Mississippi asks Cole to teach him how to shoot, but Mississippi is such a bad shot that Cole gets him a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun with the stock cut down to a plow-handle. Initially, Cole doesn’t want anything to do with Mississippi, but Mississippi knows that Cole is heading back to El Dorado. It seems that Sheriff J.P. Harrah tangled “with a wandering petticoat” and lost. Since his ill-fated romance, Harrah has retreated into a whiskey bottle and Cole fears that Harrah will prove easy prey for McLeod. When they reach El Dorado, Maudie (Charlene Holt of “Redline 7000”) brings Cole up to speed on the situation. Cole and Harrah tangle in the jail when Cole tries to awaken the drunken Harrah. Mississippi whips together a concoction to sober up Harrah and an old frontier scout Bull (seasoned character actor Arthur Hunnicutt of “The Big Sky”) helps him acquire the ingredients.
Jason’s men wound another MacDonald and Harrah takes Jason prisoner while McLeod lays siege to the jail. Cole’s Achilles heel gunshot wound strikes him at an inopportune time and McLeod takes him hostage and exchanges Cole for Jason. The heroes, both crippled from gunshot wounds, surprise McLeod and Joe mows down Jason in a savage shoot’em up. Christopher George doesn’t get much screen time but he makes a memorable villain. Hunnicutt steals the show with his homespun humor. The byplay between Wayne and Mitchum is hilarious, especially when Wayne awakens Mitchum in the jail scenes. Mitchum is quite good playing a drunk and he shares a scene in the saloon showdown with his brother.
“Bad Seed” lenser Harold Rosson gives “El Dorado” a warm, leathery look that adds atmosphere to the action. The shot where McLeod’s henchman plunges off a church belfry and falls into the camera is terrific! “Batman” composer Nelson Riddle furnishes this western with a lively jazz type orchestral score. Veteran characters Jim Davis of “Dallas” and Don Collier of “The High Chaparral” appear in supporting roles. “El Dorado” ranks as a more entertaining western that “Rio Bravo,” but “Rio Bravo” is justly considered more classical, if for nothing than he served as the inspiration for Hawks and Wayne to reteam with Brackett handling the screenplay. Hawks and Brackett dust off another scene for some of the more violent encounters in “El Dorado.” After Mississippi shoots a McLeod man, two of McLeod’s gunmen, Milt (Robert Donner) and Pedro lay outside to bushwhack Mississippi. Cole keeps Mississippi from being shot. Three-quarters to the way into the story, Cole and Mississippi chase a villain in to saloon and find Milt and Pedro waiting for them in front of a doorway. Cole pumps Milt full with three slugs before the reluctant villain agrees to exit by the rear door, only to be shot and killed by assassins waiting outside. Hawks and Brackett pulled this gag in the Humphrey Bogart film noir thriller “The Big Sleep.” The scene where a hung0ver Harrah pursues a wounded gunman into the saloon is similar to a “Rio Bravo” confrontation where Dude (Dean Martin) pursued a wounded killer into a saloon. The scene where James Caan’s knife-throwing sidekick pronounces his name for the benefit of a fuzzy-headed Harrah is side-splitting stuff.
“El Dorado” is worth seeing several times over.
FILM REVIEW OF ''THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3"
As the second remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," the latest version starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta manages to be a slick and suspenseful white-knuckler. Nevertheless, this glossy new epic with its numerous narrative changes doesn't surpass director Joseph Sargent's 1974 original that toplined Walter Matthau & Robert Shaw. "Top Gun" director Tony Scott and Oscar-winning "L.A. Confidential" scenarist Brian Helgeland have cherry picked scenes and ideas from both author John Godey's bestselling novel and Sargent's original. Sadly, Scott and Helgeland have altered irreparably the characters of hero and villain in the name of political correctness. Not only have they changed the hero from a Transit Authority lieutenant to a corrupt subway employee, but they have also altered the villain from an out-of-work mercenary to a sleazy Wall Street crook.
Furthermore, the second remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" (**1/2 out of ****) suffers from a dire lack of credibility. Denzel Washington's last minute transformation from a non-violent subway dispatcher to a gun-toting crusader who can commandeer a vehicle so he can pursue the villain isn't persuasive enough to pass muster. Additionally, the new technology that the film features is marginal when you consider either what Scott and Helgeland have omitted or ignored as solid story elements. Mind you, Scott generates more than enough tension to make you put you on the edge of yours seat while the villains hold hostages, but the surprises are few and far between in this R-rated actioneer. Consequently, we have a tainted hero who isn't a professional like Walter Matthau's Transit Cop in the original. Incidentally, I missed the 1989 made-for-TV remake with "Miami Vice" star James Edward Olmos. Anyway, an ordinary guy is now the hero, while the villain is an egotistical lout. Happily, actor John Travolta delivers a strong, wholly believable performance as the unhinged maniac who planned this hijacking.
As Garber's murderous adversary, Ryder (John Travolta) is two weeks out of prison with a tattoo on his neck, a bandit mustache, and a willingness to blow the brains out of hostages at point blank range. He is an ex-Wall Street broker who tampered with the city of New York's pension fund, and he is using the hijacking incident to play the stock market for bigger gains. Helgeland has concocted some good ideas, such as Ryder's stock market scheme, but he has provided some bad things, too. For example, heroic subway dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington of "Man on Fire") is suspected of accepting a $35-thousand dollar bribe during a business trip to Japan and has been demoted. The day that Ryder (John Travolta of "Wild Hogs") occupies the eponymous subway train with his three fellow conspirators and demands $10-million from NYC, Garber is working as the dispatcher. Ryder contacts him and makes his demands. When Garber's supervisor relieves him, Ryder threatens to kill a hostage if they don't recall Garber. Ryder simply doesn't trust anybody, but he believes Garber because the latter admitted that he took a bribe in the presence of eye-witnesses.
The villains, a quartet of submachine gun toting goons, hijack the subway train and stop it in the middle of a busy tunnel. They disconnect all the cars from the engine car and let the motorman and the passengers trudge back to the last platform. A cop tries to intervene as the transfer is going down, and the badguys riddle him with a hail of bullets. Now, the badguys hold the 17 passengers and the conductor from the first car, shut the power off to the tracks, and establish their own wireless access so that they can monitor the Internet as news about them develops in the city. During this interval, Ryder surfs the web and discovers that Garber has been accused of bribery.
One of Helgeland's bad ideas is a teenage passenger with a lap-top computer. When Ryder brings the subway train to a jarring halt, the computer flies out of the kid's hands and slides underneath the seats across the aisle from him. The kid can clearly see his idiotic girlfriend on the 16-inch monitor begging to know what has happened. Initially, after the train halts, the Internet connection between the kid and his girlfriend is disrupted. Later, after the villains establish power so that Ryder can monitor the stock market, the kid's lap-top comes back on-line. Eventually, the girlfriend arranges things up so that her boyfriend's computer is streaming live video from the train that apparently nobody else but the cops can view. Moreover, Ryder's cretinous cohorts patrol the aisle but cannot spot a lap-top computer with its glowing picture screen. Talk about a serious lapse in credibility! Naturally, everything above ground goes amok in New York City. The unhappy NYC mayor (James Gandolfini of "The Sopranos") rushes to the subway command center to assure Ryder that New York will pay the ransom. Incredibly, the city has a short length of time to count the cash and deliver by police couriers with motorcycle patrolmen blocking intersections across the city as the couriers race as breakneck speed. At one point, an accident occurs and the courier vehicle is smashed and sent flying off a bridge to crash into on-coming traffic in the lanes under the bridge!
Scott does a good job of ramping up the action and keeping things tense both above and below ground as Ryder's clock ticks to a dangerous deadline. Altogether, Scott's "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" isn't a bad movie, but it isn't half as good as Joseph Sargent's original nail-biter. Travolta makes a solid villain, unstable as all get-out, but Robert Shaw was better in the first film. If you haven't seen the 1974 original, then you don't know what you are missing. Prepare yourself for a great deal of profanity in "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" and several violent shoot-outs, especially one street shoot-out where two men perish in a barrage of gunfire.
Furthermore, the second remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" (**1/2 out of ****) suffers from a dire lack of credibility. Denzel Washington's last minute transformation from a non-violent subway dispatcher to a gun-toting crusader who can commandeer a vehicle so he can pursue the villain isn't persuasive enough to pass muster. Additionally, the new technology that the film features is marginal when you consider either what Scott and Helgeland have omitted or ignored as solid story elements. Mind you, Scott generates more than enough tension to make you put you on the edge of yours seat while the villains hold hostages, but the surprises are few and far between in this R-rated actioneer. Consequently, we have a tainted hero who isn't a professional like Walter Matthau's Transit Cop in the original. Incidentally, I missed the 1989 made-for-TV remake with "Miami Vice" star James Edward Olmos. Anyway, an ordinary guy is now the hero, while the villain is an egotistical lout. Happily, actor John Travolta delivers a strong, wholly believable performance as the unhinged maniac who planned this hijacking.
As Garber's murderous adversary, Ryder (John Travolta) is two weeks out of prison with a tattoo on his neck, a bandit mustache, and a willingness to blow the brains out of hostages at point blank range. He is an ex-Wall Street broker who tampered with the city of New York's pension fund, and he is using the hijacking incident to play the stock market for bigger gains. Helgeland has concocted some good ideas, such as Ryder's stock market scheme, but he has provided some bad things, too. For example, heroic subway dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington of "Man on Fire") is suspected of accepting a $35-thousand dollar bribe during a business trip to Japan and has been demoted. The day that Ryder (John Travolta of "Wild Hogs") occupies the eponymous subway train with his three fellow conspirators and demands $10-million from NYC, Garber is working as the dispatcher. Ryder contacts him and makes his demands. When Garber's supervisor relieves him, Ryder threatens to kill a hostage if they don't recall Garber. Ryder simply doesn't trust anybody, but he believes Garber because the latter admitted that he took a bribe in the presence of eye-witnesses.
The villains, a quartet of submachine gun toting goons, hijack the subway train and stop it in the middle of a busy tunnel. They disconnect all the cars from the engine car and let the motorman and the passengers trudge back to the last platform. A cop tries to intervene as the transfer is going down, and the badguys riddle him with a hail of bullets. Now, the badguys hold the 17 passengers and the conductor from the first car, shut the power off to the tracks, and establish their own wireless access so that they can monitor the Internet as news about them develops in the city. During this interval, Ryder surfs the web and discovers that Garber has been accused of bribery.
One of Helgeland's bad ideas is a teenage passenger with a lap-top computer. When Ryder brings the subway train to a jarring halt, the computer flies out of the kid's hands and slides underneath the seats across the aisle from him. The kid can clearly see his idiotic girlfriend on the 16-inch monitor begging to know what has happened. Initially, after the train halts, the Internet connection between the kid and his girlfriend is disrupted. Later, after the villains establish power so that Ryder can monitor the stock market, the kid's lap-top comes back on-line. Eventually, the girlfriend arranges things up so that her boyfriend's computer is streaming live video from the train that apparently nobody else but the cops can view. Moreover, Ryder's cretinous cohorts patrol the aisle but cannot spot a lap-top computer with its glowing picture screen. Talk about a serious lapse in credibility! Naturally, everything above ground goes amok in New York City. The unhappy NYC mayor (James Gandolfini of "The Sopranos") rushes to the subway command center to assure Ryder that New York will pay the ransom. Incredibly, the city has a short length of time to count the cash and deliver by police couriers with motorcycle patrolmen blocking intersections across the city as the couriers race as breakneck speed. At one point, an accident occurs and the courier vehicle is smashed and sent flying off a bridge to crash into on-coming traffic in the lanes under the bridge!
Scott does a good job of ramping up the action and keeping things tense both above and below ground as Ryder's clock ticks to a dangerous deadline. Altogether, Scott's "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" isn't a bad movie, but it isn't half as good as Joseph Sargent's original nail-biter. Travolta makes a solid villain, unstable as all get-out, but Robert Shaw was better in the first film. If you haven't seen the 1974 original, then you don't know what you are missing. Prepare yourself for a great deal of profanity in "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" and several violent shoot-outs, especially one street shoot-out where two men perish in a barrage of gunfire.
Monday, June 8, 2009
FILM REVIEW OF ''THE HANGOVER'' (2009)
“Old School” director Todd Phillips finds himself in fine form once again with a farcically funny, guys-gone-crazy, hootenanny “The Hangover” (**** out of ****), the flip side of the darker 1998 Christian Slater facsimile “Very Bad Things.” Starring Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, and Heather Graham, this side-splitting Sin City ‘lost weekend’ gives new meaning to the old adage “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’ A riotous, rip-snorting, R-rated, road-trip comedy from fade-in to fade-out, this opus about three groomsmen and a bachelor sowing wild oats takes many unexpected twists and turns throughout its hysterical 99 minutes to keep you laughing long after the end credits. “Four Christmases” scribes Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who also penned “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” have concocted a fresh, funny, and far-out misadventure that consistently delivers laughs based on the comic formula of incongruity. Our sympathetic heroes spend the entire time behind the eight ball dealing with one trial and tribulation after another so outlandish that you cannot help by howl at each new revelation.
Doug Billings (Justin Bartha of the “National Treasure” movies) is due to wed his wealthy fiancée Tracy Garner (Sasha Barrese of “Legally Blonde”) in two days. Before he gets hitched, Doug’s two best buddies—school teacher Phil Wenneck (Bradley Cooper of “He’s Just Not That Into You”) and dentist Stu Price (Ed Helms of “Semi-Pro”)—along with Tracy’s weird brother Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis of TV’s “Tru Calling”) take him to Vegas for a last-minute blow-out. Tracy’s father Sid (Jeffrey Tambor 0f “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army”) hands Doug the keys to his classic Mercedes convertible and entrusts its care to him. Sid admonishes Doug not to let Alan get behind the wheel, and Doug and his cronies hit the road for Caesar’s Palace. No sooner do they arrive than they alter their plans. First, they check themselves into an expensive $4, 200 a night villa. Second, they ascend to the roof to toast Doug’s future with shots of Jagermeister. Third, cretinous Alan laces their liquor with Rohypnol or roofies, a date-rape drug that he mistakenly believes is Ecstasy so they can really enjoy themselves.
Phil, Stu, and Alan awaken the next day to a trashed villa. Alan waddles off to take a whiz and discovers that a real-live tiger—stripes, claws, and all—is lounging in their bathroom. Our heroes regroup and deduce that they have spent the wildest weekend of their lives. Phil wears a medical bracelet from his night in the emergency room where doctors treated him for a concussion. Not only has Stu lost one of his front teeth, but he has also lost his mother’s Holocaust ring that he planned to give to his girlfriend Melissa (Rachael Harris of “The Soloist”), when he proposes marriage to her. Incidentally, Melissa believes the boys are enjoying a wine tasting weekend in the woods rather than a bachelor party in Vegas. Nothing really awful happens to Alan because he qualifies as his own worst enemy. Alan discovers, however, that they have an infant in their closet. When the guys descend to the parking lot for their Mercedes, they are surprised when the valets whip a Las Vegas police cruiser up to the entrance for them.
Principally, our heroes remember nothing from the previous eight hours thanks to the roofies. Worse, they find neither hide nor hair of Doug. Indeed, Doug has vanished. Phil, Stu, and Alan set out to retrace their evening’s revelry in an effort to recover Doug. Stu learns he has married a stripper, Jade (Heather Graham of “Say It Isn’t So”), who is wearing his mother’s Holocaust ring, while a couple of Asian thugs want to pound them into the pavement for stealing $80-thousand from their whiny boss, Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong of “Role Models”), who has lost is dough as well as his duds.
Todd Phillips relates most of this madcap merriment in flashback. No stranger to comedy, Phillips also helmed “School for Scoundrels’ and “Road Trip,” and he keeps the humor in high gear. One of the funniest scenes finds our hapless heroes making a deal with the Las Vegas Police to drop their grand theft auto charges if they participate in a tazer demonstration. The LVPD let elementary school aged children tazer them. Eventually, our heroes find Doug but they also have to tangle with Mike Tyson as well as Doug’s testy fiancée. Tracy demands unequivocally that they haul themselves back to L.A. for the wedding. Predictably, our heroes damage Sid’s priceless Mercedes and snap scores of incriminating photos of themselves at play. Unlike “Very Bad Things,” “The Hangover” will keep you doubled up in hysterics!
Doug Billings (Justin Bartha of the “National Treasure” movies) is due to wed his wealthy fiancée Tracy Garner (Sasha Barrese of “Legally Blonde”) in two days. Before he gets hitched, Doug’s two best buddies—school teacher Phil Wenneck (Bradley Cooper of “He’s Just Not That Into You”) and dentist Stu Price (Ed Helms of “Semi-Pro”)—along with Tracy’s weird brother Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis of TV’s “Tru Calling”) take him to Vegas for a last-minute blow-out. Tracy’s father Sid (Jeffrey Tambor 0f “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army”) hands Doug the keys to his classic Mercedes convertible and entrusts its care to him. Sid admonishes Doug not to let Alan get behind the wheel, and Doug and his cronies hit the road for Caesar’s Palace. No sooner do they arrive than they alter their plans. First, they check themselves into an expensive $4, 200 a night villa. Second, they ascend to the roof to toast Doug’s future with shots of Jagermeister. Third, cretinous Alan laces their liquor with Rohypnol or roofies, a date-rape drug that he mistakenly believes is Ecstasy so they can really enjoy themselves.
Phil, Stu, and Alan awaken the next day to a trashed villa. Alan waddles off to take a whiz and discovers that a real-live tiger—stripes, claws, and all—is lounging in their bathroom. Our heroes regroup and deduce that they have spent the wildest weekend of their lives. Phil wears a medical bracelet from his night in the emergency room where doctors treated him for a concussion. Not only has Stu lost one of his front teeth, but he has also lost his mother’s Holocaust ring that he planned to give to his girlfriend Melissa (Rachael Harris of “The Soloist”), when he proposes marriage to her. Incidentally, Melissa believes the boys are enjoying a wine tasting weekend in the woods rather than a bachelor party in Vegas. Nothing really awful happens to Alan because he qualifies as his own worst enemy. Alan discovers, however, that they have an infant in their closet. When the guys descend to the parking lot for their Mercedes, they are surprised when the valets whip a Las Vegas police cruiser up to the entrance for them.
Principally, our heroes remember nothing from the previous eight hours thanks to the roofies. Worse, they find neither hide nor hair of Doug. Indeed, Doug has vanished. Phil, Stu, and Alan set out to retrace their evening’s revelry in an effort to recover Doug. Stu learns he has married a stripper, Jade (Heather Graham of “Say It Isn’t So”), who is wearing his mother’s Holocaust ring, while a couple of Asian thugs want to pound them into the pavement for stealing $80-thousand from their whiny boss, Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong of “Role Models”), who has lost is dough as well as his duds.
Todd Phillips relates most of this madcap merriment in flashback. No stranger to comedy, Phillips also helmed “School for Scoundrels’ and “Road Trip,” and he keeps the humor in high gear. One of the funniest scenes finds our hapless heroes making a deal with the Las Vegas Police to drop their grand theft auto charges if they participate in a tazer demonstration. The LVPD let elementary school aged children tazer them. Eventually, our heroes find Doug but they also have to tangle with Mike Tyson as well as Doug’s testy fiancée. Tracy demands unequivocally that they haul themselves back to L.A. for the wedding. Predictably, our heroes damage Sid’s priceless Mercedes and snap scores of incriminating photos of themselves at play. Unlike “Very Bad Things,” “The Hangover” will keep you doubled up in hysterics!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)