FILM REVIEW OF ''NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN''

“O’ Brother, Where Art Thou” co-directors Joel and Ethan Coen have created another classic melodrama with their modern-day western, road trip crime thriller “No Country for Old Men” (**** out of ****) about an inexorable killer and his quest to recover millions in illicit drug money. This art-house saga is a simple but powerful tale that involves four primary characters and a host of supporting characters. The action takes place in 1980. Indeed, if you use the zoom function on either your DVD or Blu-Ray player, you can spot the date on the phone bill. Moreover, if you look closely, you will see that the phone bill is $12.18. Ostensibly, the narrator, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, spends most of his time dwelling on the psychology of the characters as well as the changing times. “No Country for Old Men” isn’t your ordinary shoot’em up with cut and dried heroes and villains. The Coens have adapted the Cormac McCarthy novel and retained its pervasive sense of irony. Indeed, the moral universe of “No Country” is skewered because the villain survives, the protagonist dies, and the sheriff is so scared that he quits his job. Hired killer Anton Chigurh embodies the essence of pure evil. Despite the fact that he is a flesh & blood character, Chigurh could send shivers up the Terminator’s spine because he never gives up. Although the Coens may not realize it, Chigurh resembles another inexorable killer, the Lee Van Cleef gunman named ‘Angel Eyes’ in director Sergio Leone’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Like ‘Angel Eyes,’ Chigurh always finishes the job no matter what the consequences.

The action opens with a sheriff’s deputy arresting Chigurh (Javier Bardem of “Collateral”) and taking him in hand cuffs back to the jail. The unsuspecting deputy leaves the cuffed Chigurh sitting in a chair behind him while he phones the sheriff and discusses the unusual weapon that Chigurh uses to kill people. At the end of the conversation with the sheriff, the deputy promises his boss that “he has everything under control.” Meanwhile, behind him, Chigurh has slipped his cuffed wrists up under his thighs so that he can hold his hands in front of himself. Immediately, he attacks the deputy and they leave boot heel scuff marks galore on the floor while they struggle. Chigurh kills the deputy, confiscates a police cruiser, takes his peculiar weapon that consists of a slim canister, a hose, and a firing mechanism and pulls over a motorist, kills him with this odd weapon and steals his car. Later, at a Texaco gas station, Chigurh takes umbrage when the attendant asks him about the weather. This is quite a chilling scene as Chigurh stares at the attendant with his opaque eyes and forces him to play a game that involves flipping a coin. The attendant–like many characters–isn’t the brightest bulb in the factory and he can never get Chigurh to spell out the stakes riding on the coin flip.

The ostensible protagonist, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin of “American Gangster”), is hunting deer antelope in the desert and wounds one. Setting out to track down the wounded animal, Llewelyn comes across a scene straight out of Hell, a circle of trucks in the middle of nowhere and a number of bullet-riddled bodies strewn about them with a dead dog. Earlier, Moss saw a wounded pit bull limping away the high weeds. He finds one Mexican still alive but bleeding to death. Eventually, Moss figures out that one Mexican got away and he follows him to a ridge clad with two trees and finds the man dead with a satchel and a shiny automatic pistol. The satchel contains $2-million dollars in cash. When Moss returns home to his trailer, his wife Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald of “Trainspotting”) is watching television. She inquires about the pistol but Moss brushes off all questions and threatens to take her to bed and have sex with her. She snorts derisively and quips, “That’ll be the day.” Later that night, Moss decides to return to the scene of the shooting because his conscience has gotten to him about the sole survivor that he found. Earlier, the dying Mexican had pleaded for a drink of water and Llewelyn brings a jug of cold water. No sooner has he set foot on the scene that some other Mexicans wheel up in a truck, slash his tires, pursue him and take shots at him. Moss dives into a river and the Mexicans dispatch a tenacious pit bull dog that leaps into the river and swims after him. Moss barely gets out of the river and clears his pistol before the dog lunges at him and he guns it down. You don’t often see dogs die in modern-day movies. By this time, Chigurh is on Moss’ trail and he rides out to his trailer park. He uses his cattle gun to blow the door lock off. In fact, this is Chigurh’s favorite method of entering a building; he blows the lock off the front door. However, Moss and his wife have already vacated the premises before Chigurh arrives. Chigurh searches the trailer and finds a telephone bill that contains all the phone numbers and he starts calling the numbers. Such is the weird attention to minute detail that the Coens show us the amount of the bill: $17.16.

Chigurh arrives on the scene with two other men later on, studies the site, shoots them and sets out to find the stolen money. “No Country” depicts his pursuit of Moss. These two guys are pretty obstinate characters. Neither one of them gives up, but Moss has no idea about the lengths to which Chigurh is committed to go. Moss sends Carla Jean off to Odessa, Texas, to be with her mother while he heads off in a different direction. Carla Jean has to quit her job at Walmart before she leaves to join her cancer-stricken mother. At the same time, Sheriff Ed Tom and his deputy investigate the killings and Ed Tom is clearly shaken by what he sees of this killer. In a border town, Moss and Chigurh shoot it out in the street after Chigurh storms the hotel where Moss had holed up and kills the night clerk. He wounds Moss, but Moss wounds him, too. Chigurh stages a car fire in front of a pharmacy to get the medical supplies to tend to his wounds, while Moss walks across the border at night and winds up in a Mexican hospital where he recuperates. Eventually, he makes it back across the border, but Chigurh catches up with him and kills him. Surprisingly, in a random act of violence, Chigurh’s car is struck by another car but he survives the accident. Two kids on bikes roll up and Chigurh buys a shirt from one of them to tie up his dislocated arm and then he vanishes as if he were never there. The film concludes with Tom Ed talking about a dream that he had about his father.

“No Country for Old Men” is a chilling tale of crime in the southwest about a killer who will stop at nothing to complete his mission. Nevertheless, this isn’t a run-of-the-mill action shoot’em up clever dialogue and cool characters. These are flesh and blood people who can and do receive wounds and have to take down time to recover. The scene where Chigurh obtains the medical supplies and then nurses himself in a motel room, swabbing his wounds, plucking out the buckshot pellets and injecting himself with shots is rather gruesome but reminiscent of Sylvester Stallone dressing his wounds in the original Rambo movie "First Blood." Nothing goes as it should in a regular crime melodrama. Good loses in the long run and evil wins out in the end. This movie justifiably received four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Bardem netted the Best Supporting Oscar for his killer.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE GHOUL" (1933-British)

The contribution of “The Ghoul” to cinematic history is that this supernatural saga represents the earliest example of a British sound horror movie. According to the British Film Institute, the British Board of Censors added to the historical status of the film, too, when it gave director T. Hayes Hunter’s film an ‘H’ certificate for being horrific. Although it may have been horrific when it was initially shown, this long-lost hair raiser doesn’t do much to make your scalp crawl even with the presence of iconic horror star Boris Karloff. Director Pat Jackson remade "The Ghoul" in 1961 as a comedy "What A Carve Up" with Donald Pleasence, Shirley Eaton, Kenneth Connor, Dennis Price, and Michael Gough.

“The Ghoul” boasts a decent enough budget, but the story is confined presumably to London and the action takes place largely at night in and around a residence, a tomb, and a street. Clocking in at a modest 77 minutes in length, “The Ghoul” never wears out its welcome, but then it doesn’t have that much to make it welcome. Karloff spends too much time off-screen and his second death comes about far too easily. The film is not without a surprise or two here and there, but you won’t suffer from nightmares after watching this melodrama unless you are extremely squeamish. Indeed, apart from the eponymous character, nobody dies, though a couple of people are left the worst for wear. A woman is nearly strangled and another fellow is knocked down.

This atmospheric black & white British horror chiller concerns an Egyptologist Professor Morlant (Boris Karloff of “Frankenstein”) who is seeking immortality by means of an Egyptian artifact known as the ‘Eternal Light.’ Morlant believes that this amulet will throw open the gates of paradise for him and he will live forever. He wallows restlessly on his death bed while his servant informs a kindly minister, Parson Nigel Hartley (Ralph Richardson in his cinematic debut), that the good professor won’t see the light of dawn. Moreover, he adds that Morlant has pagan beliefs and has no use for a man of the cloth. “He will die in his own fashion as he has lived,” the servant states, “He is stubborn and unbending and will be so at the throne itself.”

Meantime, a stranger from Egypt, Mahmoud (D.A. Clarke-Smith”), lurks about in the shadows of London and awaits the arrival of Egyptian Sheikh Aga Ben Dragore (Harold Huth) at his apartment house. Dragore dresses like a well-heeled Englishman and loves to drink Absinthe. Mahmoud confronts Dragore and explains that he has come to fetch the ‘Eternal Light’ and return it to his native country. He is an expert knife thrower and warns Dragore to not attempt any funny business. Dragore warns him that the British authorities will catch him if he kills him. Dragore explains that he has sold the amulet to Morlant, but Mahmoud and he can get it back once Morlant is dead. Clearly, Dragore doesn’t share Morlant’s belief in the immortality that the ring possesses for its wearer.

The scene shifts to a mansion where the dying Professor Morlant warns his Scottish man servant, Laing (Ernst Thesiger of “The Old Dark House), about the consequences of being buried without the jewel! If the full moon strikes the door of his tomb and he isn’t wearing the jewel, he will rise and kill him. Before Morlant croaks, Laing carries out Morlant’s wishes but bandaging the professor’s hand with the jeweled ring on his finger. The attending physician pronounces Morlant dead from heart failure and plans go forth for Morlant’s burial. Morlant’s estate account Broughton (Cedric Hardwicke of “King Solomon’s Mines”) checks Morlant’s corpse after they have put him in an elaborate crypt and discovers that the jewel has been removed. As it turns out, Laing has stolen the jewel and concealed it in his shoe. Afterward, he hides it in a coffee jar. Morlant’s relatives show up to demand an account of his finances and things begin to happen.

Viennese cinematographer Gunther Kramph deserves the bulk of the credit with his evocative black & white photography that endows “The Ghoul” with a sinister atmosphere. Art director Alfred Junge shares some of the kudos for creating the film’s sinister, somewhat spooky atmosphere with his selection of sets. Indeed, Morlant dies—in movie time—about a quarter hour into the action, but he doesn’t make his spectacular return from the dead until some 48 minutes later. By then “The Ghoul” has lost much of its momentum, primarily because the evil professor is the most important character.

When you let your protagonist languish off-screen that length of time and dwell on supporting characters running about in a tizzy arguing about the existence of the afterlife and the significance of an amulet, you wind up undercutting the zest of the movie. Director T. Hayes Hunter shoulders the blame for this obvious flaw and his scenarists are just as guilty. However, Hunter stages with funeral scene with some aplomb and his use of Richard Wagner’s music from Siegfried's Funeral March gets it no small amount of gravity.

The logic is the usual flawed logic of any horror movie. Morlant threatens to rise from the dead if he doesn’t have the vaunted ‘Eternal Light’ on his finger, but how on earth can an ordinary human resurrect himself without the ring. Indeed, in this instance, why does he need the ring if he can walk after death? Of course, Morlant has got to walk after he dies, but the logic is pretty creaky. Interestingly, for a movie made in an English speaking country, “The Ghoul” gives some status to a pagan religion by allowing the death to walk.

Unfortunately, the details about the ‘Eternal Light’s’ power are too sketchy. We don’t know enough and the scribes are short on exposition. In the end, Scotland Yard lives up to its reputation because it captures the foreigners and gets the ring. Presumably, the film’s poor showing ruled out any chance of a sequel because Scotland Yard retains the ring.

Boris Karloff wears some sloppy looking make-up and later carves a symbol into his chest that presumably has something to do with the Egyptian afterlife. Unfortunately, Karloff is squandered as he is either floundering around in his death bed or shambling about in the mansion searching for the ring. Mercifully, Hunter keeps a tight rein on the comic relief, principally a girlfriend of one of Morlant’s cousins. Altogether, the creepy atmosphere and first-rate performances help, but “The Ghoul” wouldn’t scare a cat.

FILM REVIEW OF ''RIDE HIM, COWBOY" (1932)

Director Fred Allen’s “Ride Him, Cowboy,” a remake of the 1926 Warner Brothers’ Ken Maynard western “The Unknown,” toplined John Wayne in his first oater for the Burbank company as a harmonica playing hero out to break up a ring of range thieves terrorizing ranches. Essentially, “Ride Him, Cowboy” was a B-movie sagebrusher where the star’s horse was smarter than most of the characters and behaved like a resourceful dog rather than a skittish mount. Aside from a cowboy orchestra strumming a tune, “Ride Him, Cowboy” contains no orchestral soundtrack, but this western boasts better than average production values and looks more expensive than Wayne’s later Lone Star westerns that he made after Jack Warner turned him loose some five westerns later. Indeed, this is John Wayne at age 25 looking skinny and rawboned as an upstanding, romantic lead. Predictable from fade-in to fade-out, “Ride Him, Cowboy” is nothing distinguished, but director-turned-editor Fred Allen makes interesting use of dolly shots and there is an interesting point-of-view shot of the sun boiling down on our hero when he is tied to a tree in the desert. Some of the scenes contain really grainy photography because Warner Brothers took scenes from "The Unknown" and inserted them into the story and then dressed Wayne like Maynard to make the scenes work.

“Ride Him, Cowboy” opens during one dark, rainy evening as the notorious outlaw ‘the Hawk’ (Frank Nagney of “The General”) a.k.a. Henry Sims and his henchmen attack the Gaunt ranch to steal money. A fierce horse storms up and drives the henchmen away. Jim Gaunt (Henry B. Walthall of “Judge Priest”) and his granddaughter Ruth (Ruth Hall of “Monkey Business”) check into the disturbance and find one of their ranch hands, Bob Webb, unconscious and in pretty bad shape. Gaunt is surprised to see Sims on his property. Sims explains he just happened to be riding along when he heard the fracas. Sims argues that the horse tried to kill Webb and ought to be destroyed. Meanwhile, the doctor thinks that Webb will pull through without harm, but the ranch hand remains in a coma for three days.

The next day in the frontier town of Cattlelow in Maricopa County around the year 1900, Judge Bartlett (Charles Sellon of “Baby Face”) convenes court to decide whether to destroy Duke or let the horse live. Sims offers compelling testimony against the horse and Duke rears up at Sims. Ruth rushes to Duke’s defense and pleads with the judge not to destroy a horse as gentle as he is. About that time, wandering cowpoke John Drury, late of the Tumblin’ Ace Ranch in Texas, rides into Cattlelow on his horse ‘Buddy’ playing a harmonica without a care in the world. When Drury leans about the impending demise of Duke, he intervenes and persuades Judge Bartlett to let Duke live if he can ride the ornery horse. Sims makes a one-hundred dollar wager with Gaunt that Drury cannot stay aboard Duke and loses. Ruth and Gaunt are overjoyed that Drury saves Duke and a bystander observes that Drury would be a great addition to the vigilantes in their fight against the Hawk. Gaunt invites Drury to their meeting after our hero says that he loves excitement and gives Ruth a loving eye.

At the vigilante meeting, Drury suggests that the best way to handle the Hawk is for one man to tackle the villain. Drury learns that nobody knows what the Hawk looks like, except the man has ridden roughshod over the county for years now. John Gaunt persuades Sims to escort Drury into the Hawk’s bailiwick. One of the best dolly shots in “Ride Him, Cowboy” occurs during this scene when Allen dollies out from a close-up of Sims to show the entire with several western characters seated around a table. The deputy, Clout (Henry Gribbon of “Yankee Doodle in Berlin”), provides top-notch comic relief as a clowning blow-hard coward. Later that evening at the Gaunt ranch, John and Ruth get to know each other and Ruth insists that John take Duke when he leaves to track down the Hawk. At the same time, Duke trots up and strips the saddle off Drury’s horse Buddy. Drury rides off on Duke and meets Sims the following day at Eagle Pass. They ride into the desert and take a breather where Drury explains that his revolver is a 38 caliber gun in a .45 caliber frame dampen the recoil. They compare their ability to make difficult shots look easy and Sims tries out Drury’s six-gun and gets the drop on our hero. He ties Drury to a tree while Duke restlessly pulls at his own reins after Drury has knotted them to nearby tree.

The Hawk gathers his men, attacks a ranch, and kills the son of the owner and wife. He burns down the buildings and frames Drury for the crime by leaving Drury’s harmonica at the scene. Sims informs Ruth that Drury left him without a word in the night and hasn’t been seen since he rode off. The vigilantes and the sheriff catch up to Drury. The only reason that Drury didn’t die from exposure of the sun is that Duke pulled himself loose from the tree and untied Drury’s bonds with his teeth. The authorities take Drury to a nearby abandoned town where Judge E. Clarence 'Necktie' Jones (Otis Harlan of “Dr. Socrates”) convenes a hearing and pretty much railroads Drury into a noose based on Sims’ testimony. Meanwhile, Webb recovers from his coma and informs Ruth that it was Sims as the Hawk who attacked their ranch. Ruth mounts up and rides like the devil to save Drury’s life. Along the way, she runs into the Hawk’s henchmen and fools them into following her to ‘Necktie’ Jones’ courtroom. Ruth arrives in the nick of time to save Drury from an inevitable hanging. A gunfight erupts but the authorities capture the Hawk before either his men or he can escape.

Clocking in at a lean, mean 55 minutes, “Ride Him, Cowboy” moves at a brisk pace and this western adventure never bogs down. Producer Leon Schlesinger is the same individual who supervised the Warner Brothers’ cartoons with Bugs Bunny and company.

FILM REVIEW OF ''BRUNO'' (2009)

Some comedians will do anything for a laugh. Sasha Baron Cohen has already proven his penchant for getting laughs in his previous improvisational mockumentary farce “Borat.” “Borat” (2006) consisted largely of gross-out jokes aimed at exposing racism and religious hypocrisy done guerrilla “Candid Camera” style on clueless, unsuspecting rubes. Cohen repeats the “Borat” formula in “Bruno.” If you thought “Borat” constituted the nadir of bad taste, nothing in “Borat,” including the nude wrestling match between two guys, can compete with the smutty jokes, outrageous sight gags, and flagrant display of genitals in “Bruno.” Indeed, “Bruno” (* out of ****) attacks homophobic rednecks, parochially minded prudes, and nincompoops desperately seeking their 15 minutes of fame in the ubiquitously mediated society. Anybody who doesn’t like to laugh at jokes that are liable to offend them shouldn’t see “Bruno.” Watching “Bruno” is the equivalent of having your friends make a YouTube video of you sticking your finger down your throat to see how far down you can get it before your hurl. Another way to describe “Bruno” would be to think of the last really awful traffic accident that you went out of your way to stare at because everybody else was gawking at it.

Calling Bruno (Cambridge native Sasha Baron Cohen of HBO’s “Da Ali G Show”) conspicuously gay qualifies as a hopeless understatement. Bruno cavorts about in clownishly obvious costumes that leave little to the imagination and takes his gay masquerade to incendiary levels of idiocy. Added to that he utters every word in a falsetto voice that nobody in their right mind would attempt without feeling self-conscious. The thought that Cohen could be taking swipes at Gay Liberation isn’t that difficult to fathom considering the subject matter of “Bruno.” Indeed, Bruno could have stepped off a spaceship from another galaxy with his uber-queer performance that alienates everybody except the most feeble-minded. While Cohen’s cretinous Kazakhstani journalist in “Borat” amounted to a somewhat sympathetic character, nothing about Bruno is remotely sympathetic. At the outset, Bruno stars in a European television program entitled "Funkyzeit." He has to leave his native Austria after he disgraces himself at a fashion show in Milan when he shows up dressed in an all-Velcro outfit. Predictably, every place Bruno turns, he attaches himself to curtains, backdrops, and models and then stumbles out onto the stage in front of the crowd. Afterward, Bruno decides to fly to Los Angeles and to become "the biggest Austrian superstar since Hitler."

Bruno takes a stab at producing a reality show called “A-List Celebrity Max-Out mit Brüno” where he interviews luminaries. He invites Paula Abdul to a posh house where Mexicans on their knees and elbows to act as furniture. Abdul looks around suspiciously at the live-action furniture, and she isn’t quite sure what to make it. Bruno invites her to have bite to eat and Abdul decides to exit when Bruno tries to serve her sushi from the body of a naked Mexican. Later, Bruno tries to ambush Harrison Ford for an interview. Yes, the guy actually looks just like Harrison Ford. Ford doesn’t take long to let Bruno know where to get off. Afterward, Bruno’s agent arranges for a focus group to evaluate his show. During the presentation, Bruno twirls his genitals like a cheerleader and the expressions that he elicits from the focus group are horrifying. Predictably, Bruno cannot imagine why they are so repulsed by his program. Later, cornering the recent libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul in a bedroom, Bruno begins to disrobe. The witless Paul realizes his error and exits in a heartbeat. Eventually, Bruno decides that the only way that he can scale the summits of superstardom is to straighten himself out. He visits a minister in Alabama who tries to help Bruno renounce his homosexuality. Along the way, Bruno visits a karate studio where he learns methods of defending himself from gays who might be stalking him. The karate instructor is either the greatest actor in the world or he was in on the joke because he looks genuinely convinced that Bruno is deathly afraid of homosexuals. Finally, at a cage fight in Arkansas, Bruno masquerades as a heterosexual fight promoter inciting brain-dead rednecks for forthcoming fights until he shocks them with a gay love making scene that devastated the entire crowd.

Director Larry Charles, who knows a thing or two about embarrassing people in public, helmed Cohen’s earlier film “Borat” as well as Bill Mahler’s “Religulous.” The biggest problem with “Bruno” is that you know some of the scenes had to have been staged with the participants in on the joke. Indeed, in this respect, because it is so obscene, “Bruno” must have been worked out ahead of time. The most clueless of the clueless is Bruno who never realizes how out-of-place that he is around ordinary, everyday people. Reportedly, Universal Studios deleted a scene with La Toya Jackson where Bruno tried to obtain Michael Jackson’s phone number. Nobody can say that Sasha Baron Cohen lacks nerve, because it takes a lot of nerve for him to serve up some of the sights that appear in this 82-minute mishmash. The karate scene is the best that “Bruno” has to offer. The scenes with the religious figures are far too cruel. Mind you, a lot of what transpires in “Bruno” is deliberately mean-spirited. Not even stupid people deserve the treatment that Cohen gives them. Believe me, nothing you’ve ever seen will prepare you for the sights in the R-rated “Bruno.”

FILM REVIEW OF ''FACE/OFF" (1997)

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!

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.

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.