FILM REVIEW OF ''KILLING THEM SOFTLY" (2012)

Connoisseurs of hard-boiled criminal melodramas should line-up for writer and director Andrew Dominik’s latest outing “Killing Them Softly,” (**** OUT OF ****) starring Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini, Sam Shepard, and Richard Jenkins.  Mind you, this isn’t a high-octane heist caper with edge-of-the-seat suspense, careening car chases, and scantily clad beauty queens.  If anything, “Killing Them Softly” qualifies as just the opposite.  Had I not read the page-turner Dominik adapted for this third feature film, I would have thought he was imitating Quentin Tarantino without the torture scenes.  Indeed, the first time I saw this atmospheric, but strictly small potatoes ‘disorganized crime’ thriller with its loquacious low-lifers, dismal urban locales, and ultra-violent, artsy-smartsy, shoot’em ups, I walked away with a low opinion of it.  Dominik adapted “Killing Them Softly” from the 216-page novel “Cogan’s Trade,” published back in 1974, long before Tarantino arrived in Hollywood.  Anybody who remembers the vintage Robert Mitchum movie “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1973), will savor this 97-minute epic.  The characters are unsavory hoodlums with foul mouths and itchy trigger fingers who love to talk about their individual peccadilloes.  A liquor-swilling James Gandolfini appears for three scenes and vanishes, while Pitt looks like a pirate, smokes like chimney, and sports a genuinely cynical attitude.  Unfortunately, this Brad Pitt movie doesn’t look like it was designed for mainstream, PG-13 audiences, any more than Dominik’s last picture, the obscure western “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”  Nevertheless, although it looks like a hundred other forgettable, straight-to-video crime movies, “Killing Them Softly” is one of the coolest, all-male, crime movies you will enjoy.

“Killing Them Softly” draws its title from the protagonist’s method of killing people.  Chiefly, he doesn’t want to kill anybody who he knows.  The victim’s outburst of emotion and their pleas for mercy horrify him.  Basically, rather than killing somebody you know, you only rub out those you don’t know.  Ostensibly, this riveting crime thriller amounts to a series of long-winded conversations between hoodlums punctuated with gunplay.  While the novel took place in the 1970s, Dominik has updated it to 2008 during the Obama Vs. McCain presidential election.  Wall Street has just plunged America into the depths of a recession, and nobody is happy.  The economy is stalling out.  An unlucky ex-con Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola of HBO’s “The Sopranos”) owns a dry-cleaning business.  He hatches a scheme with an accomplice, Frankie (Scoot McNairy of “Argo”), that involves knocking over a mob-protected poker game.  Everybody knowsif you try to steal from the mob, you can expect to die a hideous death.  Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta of “Goodfellas”) masterminded such a heist; he robbed his own game and then convinced the mob enforcers sent to sweat a confession out of him that he didn’t do it.  After Dillon (Sam Shepard of “Safe House”) and Kenny Gill (Slaine of “The Town”) rough Markie up, Markie goes back to business as usual.  One evening, with a different group of poker players, Markie lets it drop that he robbed his own poker game.  Nobody retaliates, but Johnny Amato decides if he doesn’t rob Markie’s new set-up that somebody will beat him to it.  Frankie isn’t so sure about the wisdom of Amato’s strategy.  Amato assures Frankie that everybody will remember Markie’s early treachery and the real hoodlums will get away scot-free with about $50-thousand.  Frankie and his wisecracking, heroin-shooting, Australian pal, Russell (Ben Mendelsohn of “Knowing”), burst in on Markie’s poker game and rob not only Markie but also his players.  Frankie wields an incredible, double-barreled, sawed off shotgun with the barrels cut so far back that you can see the shells with their green crimping sticking out.  No sooner than they hold up the game and escape, the mob in the anonymous city where the action unfolds imports a thug, Cogan (Brad Pitt of “Fight Club”), to straighten the situation out.  It seems that this second robbery has hurt the mob.  Nobody wants to gamble for fear they will be held up.  Cogan and a mob attorney, Driver (Richard Jenkins of “The Cabin in the Woods”), arrange the details and the pay-offs.  Of course, nothing goes according to plan for Cogan.  He hires an out-of-town torpedo, Mickey (James Gandolfini of “True Romance”), to whack Johnny Amato because Amato knows Cogan.  Again, Cogan has neither the patience nor the desire to watch Amato plead for his life before he blows his head to smithereens.

The late George V. Higgins captured the grimy underbelly of the criminal world in his 26 or so novels.  He shocked critics with his use of profanity.  Like Tarantino, Higgins possessed a droll sense of humor.  Higgins’ characters uttered the F-word as often as Al Pacino’s Cuban gangster did in “Scarface.”  Dominik has transferred “Cogan’s Trade” to the big-screen with enviable fidelity to the source material.  “Killing Them Softly” is one of the rare exceptions to the rule where the movie isn’t as good as the novel.  Sure, some things must have bit the editing room floor, but the film never wears out its welcome. When he isn’t faithfully duplicating Higgins’ irreverent dialogue, Dominik proves that he is a genuinely gifted director.  He shows what it is like for a heroin addict to carry on a conversation.  Furthermore, the little touches distinguish “Killing Them Softly;” you’ve never see a car door shut the way that Dominik depicts it.  Using television news clips from politicians during the 2008 Wall Street debacle, Dominik compares the criminal tendencies of Wall Street with hoodlums.  Nothing about “Killing Them Softly” is delicate, but its sense of irony will have you rolling in the aisles.

FILM REVIEW OF ''RED DAWN' (2012)

Although I ranked the original “Red Dawn” (1984) as a vintage Reagan-era action opus, freshman director Don Bradley’s supercharged, high-octane, remake starring Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, and Josh Hutcherson surpasses its predecessor on several counts.  The first “Red Dawn” depicted a Soviet invasion of a small Colorado town and the scrappy squad of high school teens who eventually ousted them with their hit-and-run guerrilla warfare.  Patrick Swayze starred in the original, and Charlie Sheen made his cinematic debut.  Anti-Communist, Cold War movies enjoyed a brief renaissance when “Red Dawn” came out.  Clint Eastwood’s “Firefox” (1982) about a washed-up Vietnam pilot who stole a top-secret Soviet stealth jet fighter represented a standard example of these films.  Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky IV” (1985) appeared a year after “Red Dawn” with the Italian Stallion swapping blows with a gigantic Soviet pugilist.  Meanwhile, James Bond had tangled with cunning Soviets in both “For Your Eyes Only” (1981) and “Octopussy” (1983).  The Soviets qualified as despicable B-movie villains, but the Americans defeated them despite any handicaps.  The last gasp of this sub-genre occurred during the 1980s, particularly after the bottom dropped out of the Evil Empire in 1989.  Comparatively, while Milius’ “Red Dawn” unfolded largely in a rural setting, the agile remake occurs in the urban setting of Spokane, Washington.  Bradley and scenarists Carl Ellsworth of “Disturbia” and Jeremy Passmore of “Special” haven’t departed drastically from the original screenplay that Kevin Reynolds of “Waterworld” and John Milius of “Flight of the Intruder” penned.  Whereas the original concluded with the defeat of the enemy and the end of World War III, the “Red Dawn” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) remake leaves the outcome of the action up in the air.  This remake is not as enigmatic about the fate of its protagonist as its predecessor was.  

Chris Hemsworth of "Thor" plays battle seasoned Marine Jed Eckert who comes home to Spokane after his tour of duty.  It seems Jed ran out not only on his father, Spokane Police Sergeant Tom Eckert (Brent Cullen), but also his impressionable younger brother Matt (Josh Peck of “Drillbit Taylor”) and left no messages.  Not long after Jed arrives home, the unexpected happens.  Enemy cargo planes crowd the sky, and paratroopers appear like a blizzard of snowflakes.  Jed, Matt, and their friend Robert (Josh Hutcherson of “The Hunger Games”) scramble for the safety of the family cabin in the woods.  Along the way, they pick up several others as they flee from the besieged city during a harrowing auto chase with the North Koreans in furious pursuit.  Eventually, Jed trains these teens from the bootstraps up into a lethal band of guerrillas.  Soon they become the bane of the North Koreans.  Everywhere our heroes go and devastate the North Koreans, they spray-paint wolverines on the walls.  Wolverines are the name of their high school football team.  No matter how fiercely North Korean District Leader Captain Cho (Will Yun Lee of “Die Another Day”) pursues them, Jed and company elude him at every turn.  One day our heroes join forces with three Marines dispatched to contact them.  Helicopter pilot Colonel Andy Tanner (Jeffrey Dean Morgan of “The Losers”) and his two men explain they have been ordered to retrieve a top-secret communications unit that the enemy uses to safeguard its chain of command.  Jed and Matt clash when Matt takes advantage of an opportunity to rescue his girlfriend, Erica Martin (Isabel Lucas of “Immortals”), from a prison bus during a major tactical exercise. One of them dies because Matt goes rogue on the Wolverines.  Before long the North Korean bring in an imposing Russian military adviser who devises a way to track the Wolverines back to their lair.  Jed and Matt square off against each other about Matt’s irresponsible attitude.  Eventually, the two reach reconciliation before the North Koreans descend on them without warning.

One of the biggest criticisms about “Red Dawn” (1984) was its far-fetched premise.  A Soviet airborne invasion seemed dubious initially, and it seems even more implausible in the remake.  The Soviet Union emerged as our chief nemesis from the end of World War II and remained so until 1989.  Pitting a faction of fresh-faced kids against the Soviets isn’t nearly as improbable as pitting them against the North Koreans.  Mind you, nobody considers the North Koreans a serious threat compared with either Russia or China.  One of the strengths of the “Red Dawn” remake, however, is the way it makes the events that precipitate World War III seem credible.  Nevertheless, casting the North Koreans as our adversary remains lamentable.  Originally, the filmmakers cast the Red Chinese as our adversary.  Afterward, the studio changed their minds because China imports Hollywood’s product.  Consequently, the studio kept “Red Dawn” on the shelf for three years while they digitally altered the uniforms, insignia, and identity of the invading army.  Bradley and his writers make us abhor the North Koreans and cheer for the underdog heroes.  Freshman director Don Bradley, who supervised the stunts on “The Bourne” movies as well as “Spider-man 2” and “Spider-man 3,”stages the combat sequences with vigorous aplomb.  The teens look credible enough wielding some impressive firepower. Bradley doesn’t waste time either.  This “Red Dawn” clocks in considerably shorter than the Milius original. Some of the dialogue sounds quotable, particularly the remark about Marines regrouping in Hell.  Altogether, “Red Dawn” qualifies as another of those few remakes that overshadows the original.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS" (1996)

Everybody who saw “The Crow” (1994), a grisly but formulaic back-fr0m-the-dead revenge melodrama, knows actor Brandon Lee died from an accidental gunshot wound on the set during filming.  Strangely enough, Lee’s untimely demise boosted the box office appeal of “The Crow.”  The success prompted Miramax Pictures to release a sequel of sorts: “The Crow: City of Angels.”  Not only have the film producers replaced Lee with another actor, but they also have conjured up an entirely new character.  Sequels typically fail to live up to the high standards of most original films, but “The Crow: City of Angels” (**1/2 out of ****) proves the exception to the rule.  The message of “The Crow: City of Angels,” a nihilistic supernatural sadomasochistic saga, is that love is sometimes stronger than death.  Nevertheless, love takes a backseat to violence in this expressionistic follow-up to the ill-fated but financially successful original.  Instead, the filmmakers aim their cameras like guns at the more unsavory narrative elements: brutal murders and echoes of deviant sexual practices with an incidental node to the love aspect.

The premise of the first “Crow” reechoes throughout the sequel.  When somebody dies, a crow carries the soul to the land of the dead.  Occasionally, something so horrible occurs that a soul can find no rest.  In such a case, the crow leads the soul back to the living so that injustices can be resolved.  David Goyer, who penned the original “Crow,” tinkers rather than tampers with the surefire formula that yielded a $50 million haul at the box office.  A cadaverous hero rises from the grave and destroys a depraved gang of low-life hemorrhoids.  In “The Crow: City of Angels,” a twenty-something auto mechanic, Ashe Corven (Vincent Perez of “Queen Margot”), and his young son Danny (Eric Acosta of “Cheerleader Massacre 2”) witness a gangland execution by a drug kingpin called Judah.

The setting has been changed from the Motor City to the City of Angels.  Instead of hoodlums celebrating Devil’s Night, as in the original, here citizens participate in the Day of the Dead ceremonies designed to discourage departing spirits from lingering with the living.  Eight years have elapsed since the first movie, and Sarah (Mia Kirshner of “Not Another Teen Movie”) is the only hold-over character from the original.  Sarah has grown up, moved to Los Angeles, and now runs a tattoo parlor.  Sarah has been having nightmares lately, about a double homicide.

A crow flies into her apartment, and she follows it to the harbor where the bodies of Ash and his son were dumped.  The crow revives Ashe, and he emerges in a frothy fountain of bubbles before Sarah’s eyes.  When Ashe embarks on his revenge, Sarah paints his face in the same Harlequin pattern as Eric Draven’s from the first film.  Only this time, she uses Ashe’s dead son’s paints, giving it a truly symbolic meaning.  Ashe begins knocking off Judah’s (Richard Brooks) henchmen, working his way, as he calls it “up the food chain” to Judah himself.  The villains comprise an undeniably loathsome bunch.  You’d certainly never invite these scumbags home to meet your parents.  Curve, (plug-ugly Iggy Pop of “Tank Girl”) resembles death warmed over, while a dark smooth-skinned Richard Brooks as Judah presents a commanding presence.  The drug dealing merchant of pain here is so repellent that he display little remorse when a poorly mixed batch of his own narcotics kills his customers.  Every time one of these reptilian characters dies, the image of a crow appears around him.  For example, when Ashe pitches one baddie from a window, the blood from the dead person’s head coagulates in a puddle shaped like a crow.

Compared with the first film, “City of Angels” isn’t as violent.  There is nothing here tha comes off as violent as the table scene where Brandon Lee’s Eric Draven got blasted by a barrage of gunfire.  French heartthrob Vincent Perez animates his slain avenger with a Gallic exuberance.  Perez’s performance also conveys a quality that makes his character vulnerable and at the same time somewhat melancholy because he is deprived of life.  Ashe reveals his reluctance to Sarah to blindly adhere to the fix path that fate has paved for him. Audiences learn the bare minimum about him.  All we know about his wife is that she abounded him and their son after she became a drug addict.  Unlike Eric Draven, Ashe’s body doesn’t erase the signs of violence.  Gunshot wounds don’t magically vanish.  He spends more time tooling about on his motorcycle in search of felons and he never carries the crow around on his shoulder.

Goyer’s episodic script resembles a formula Republic serial from the 1940s.  A mysterious hero enters a destitute city and topples a tyrant.  Compared with the longer original film, “City of Angels” amounts to a severely pared down exercise in minimalism.  The filmmakers have sacrificed exposition, which would clarify characters and story, for supercharged, headlong momentum.  If you’re looking for exposition, try the web site for “The Crow: City of Angels,” because only the most essential information for pushing the plot forward remains in the film.  Goyer and director Tim Pope keep the narrative simple, the characters shallow, and the story free from complications or digressive sub-plots.  Extraneous characters, such as Ernie Hudson’s cop from the first “Crow” don’t clutter up the storyline.

“The Crow: City of Angels” marks the motion picture debut of music-video director Tim Pope.  Previously, Pope helmed music videos for Paul McCartney, Iggy Pop, Queen, and David Bowie.  Pope clearly draws on his background so that his “Crow” boasts a fast-paced, no-nonsense, imagine intensive appearance.  The film possesses a murky, gothic look.  Smoke swirls around the different bombed-out nocturnal settings, and Pope bathes different scenes in harsh, abrasive color schemes.  The wide-angled point of view shots from the perspective of the craw have an avant-garde quality.   Although Pope never overwhelms the gruesome, sadomasochistic elements of the story, this “Crow” flies higher than the original because Pope lets his images tell the story concisely and rarely tarries where another director might have been more indulgent.  Pope proves  himself a more inventive director than Alex Proyas.  He embellishes Ashe’s sartorial transformation as the hero.  Pope shows Ashe snapping, zipping, buckling, and slipping on his symbolic outfit.  The ankle length raven black duster that Ashe dons gives him a crow-life appearance, heightened whenever he crouches on his haunches like the black bird.

While the film focuses on scenes of violence, Pope portrays each with a maximum of feeling but a minimum of gore.  Indeed, the story wallows in one bloody scene after another, but the depiction is never as sanguinary as the events themselves.  You don’t need to have seen “The Crow” to appreciate “The Crow: City of Angeles,” but you might need a strong stomach to digest the cartoon violence, heavy profanity, and scenes of bondage.  The best line of dialogue is: “Life is just a dream on the road to death.”