Predators (2010)

Predators is to Aliens as is Predator is to Alien.  Did I get that right?  It's been a long time since I've had to worry about analogies.  Predators pretends that the other Predator sequels (Predator 2, and especially Alien versus Predator I & II) never existed.  This is the first picture in the series that feels like the first Predator.  Actually, if you take away the alien (or predator, if you're confused) setting (which greatly resembles the Guatemalen jungles anyway), it's pretty much the same damned movie.  Throw that analogy above right the fuck out.  Still, plenty of good fun to be had here.

Predators opens abruptly.  With Adrien Brody being jolted awake by the fact that he is plumetting from the sky towards a jungle landscape thousands of feet below.  He lands with a thud, seconds after his shoot finally opens.  He has no idea where he is or how he got where he is.   A few feet away, lands Danny Trejo with a couple of uzis at his disposal.  Brody's got a rifle.  Some crazy Russian bastard who landed a bit further away starts shooting at them with the same gun Jesse Ventura used in the first picture, you know, the "big fucking gun" (to quote The Rock in Doom).  Brody, obviously some sort of skilled survivalist type, easily flanks the Russian and gets him to calm down.  Others fall from the sky:  We got a female sniper (and potential love interest for Brody), a guy that fought in the Sierra Leone, that guy that was in "The Shield" as a death row inmate/rapist/comic relief, a Samurai Yakuza, and Topher Grace, from "That 70s show" as a doctor who seemingly doesn't belong in this situation.

If this had been the first picture in the series I might have been intrigued by the opening in an "Outer Limits" sort of way.   Why are they here?  Who, or what, brought them here?  What do they all have in common?  The characters even have some fun with their plight wondering in a Lost-ian sort of way if, perhaps, they're all dead.  Too bad we know from the trailers and also the title that they were brought here by a bunch of predators for the simple joy of being hunted and killed in horrible ways.  Also, Brody calls it a "gaming preserve" in the trailer, which doesn't make much sense since there ain't much preserving of game in this thing.  Point is, lots of spoilage before I even saw the damned thing.

So, the characters spend a lot of time walking around a jungle.  The sniper, who I mentioned is a broad, analyzes the terrain, and the topography, and has no idea what jungle they're in.  It's not Africa, or Asia,  "I guess it could be the Amazon", but she doesn't sound convinced.  Then they wander onto a cliff and notice the giant moon and also the fact that there are multiple giant moons.  If this doesn't convince them they're fucked maybe the alien dogs with large protruding spikes on their faces will.

Other than the dogs, another alien that runs on two feet, Laurence Fishburne as a guy who has lived through "ten seasons", and the fact that they are being hunted by three predators instead of one, this is practically the same picture as the first one.  Brody makes a serviceable action hero.  He's bulked up considerably but remains wire-y in contrast to Arnold's bulkiness.  He's a highly intelligent bad ass.  One other difference is that he doesn't smoke cigars like Arnold did.  I'm sure there were others.  The girl sniper reminds us of the girl from the first one.  I thought she was her daughter or something but they didn't go there so ignore this sentence.  The guy from Sierra Leone looks like a nicer version of Bill Duke's character from the first one and is also the first to notice the predator looking down at them from the treetops and to be seen in predator-vision (just like Dukes).  Topher Grace is the seemingly weak, yet slightly smarter, version of the Shane Black character.  Slightly smarter until the part where he wanders off from the group and gets someone killed.  I guess that makes the Russian this picture's version of Jesse "I ain't got time to bleed" Ventura.  They're nothing alike except that they carry the same type of gun.  The Yakuza would be this picture's version of Sonny Landham.  They're both quiet, spiritual, and with a strict honor code that doesn't allow them to flee during a key moment.  I can't remember if Landham walked around the jungle barefoot or not.

I guess there is no Carl Weather's character in this one unless we want to say the rapist character would be his stand-in but I'm not gonna do that to Carl Weathers even if his Dillon was an asshole.

So, these characters wander around, set up defensive perimeters, and fight a predator, just like the first one.  Ok, they fight three predators, hence the title.  And, a forth predator even factors into this one but they don't fight him. Lots of predator-vision which had higher resolution than the predator-vision in the first one.  Not as pixellated, so good for the predators.  They've advanced.  Anyway, over the course of the picture they find cages which had also parachuted down to the planet.  What was in the cages?  Other prey, perhaps.

Eventually, the picture goes on a slightly weird tangent when they encounter Laurence Fishburne who has managed to survive a long time.  He even killed a few predators, and stole some cloaking armor.  He takes them back to an old crusty grounded spaceship where he's been hiding.  He's also a schizophrenic which makes you wonder how he could possibly have lasted this long.  He doesn't last much longer.

The picture's not unique but it manages to move itself along well enough.  The rapist has a funny speech about what he's gonna do if he ever makes it home (hint:  The Accused) and Topher has an equally funny reaction to that speech.  There's some gore in this thing.  One guy has his spine ripped out from the base with his head still attached.  One guy is blown up by one of those predator tracking energy beam things which doesn't exactly mesh with what happens when you get shot by one of those predator tracking energy beam things in the first one.  Then again, these predators are constantly advancing.  Their advancement might be the point of this whole hunting exercise, you might say.

The terrain of this world makes little sense.  Start in the jungle, walk a mile and you're on rocky terrain.  Walk another mile and you're in a field that might be a great place for a Samurai duel (spoiler).  The director is the superbly named Nimrod Antal who also made the adequately entertaining Armored (also with Laurence Fishburne).  The score contains plenty of notes from the original, not quite iconic, score. 

The finale involves a betrayal, an unexpected alliance, paralyzing neurotoxins, a blown up predator space ship, redeeming shots from a sniper rifle, serial killer shenanigans, beheadings, and etc.  Also, we got a mud covered Adrien Brody going man-o y predator-o with a predator.  I have to wonder though.  Do these predators know we are calling them predators?  What would they prefer to be called?  I mean, we are lumping them in with Lions, bears, snakes, and such.  Not very original.  And one more thought.  If they let the pianist manhandle them too badly should we even be calling them predators in the first place?  Despite these questions (and a few more) this was an enjoyable romp through a world of predators and others that may or may not beat them up.

Two Minute Warning (1976)

I couldn't figure out if Two Minute Warning was attempting to be an important film about the randomness of violence or if it was trying to be a fun, big budgeted 70s disaster type movie.  You know, like The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, or The Poseidon Adventure.  In the end, I sided with the latter perspective and just embraced the picture for it's non politically correct values as well as it's...well...random acts of violence.

What we got here is a picture about an all star cast converging at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the Super Bowl where they are targeted (or not targeted with the violence being random and all) by some crazy guy with a sniper's rifle who has dug in at the top of a tower right above the scoreboard.  We know what this guy is capable of since as the picture opens we see his point of view (through a sniper's scope) as he blows away an innocent bike rider from his hotel window.  The guy quickly packs up his things, disassembling his rifle and putting its various parts in varying compartments in his jacket, and leaves, not forgetting to check out.  We never see his face.  In fact, we don't see the guy's face until the very end but we are constantly treated to his perspective.  This guy is like the giant wave, or the earthquake, or the meteor from all those other 70s movies I referenced earlier.  Or, like the swarm of killer bees.  It doesn't matter what his motive is.  He  probably doesn't have one.  He exists and he's gonna cause a massive panic and probably take some lives in the process.  The only difference being he's human (he might as well not be) so we infer he's stoppable.

Just like every other big disaster movie from the 70s this picture features an all star cast.  We got Charlton Heston and Martin Balsam as a couple of detectives.  We got John Cassavetes as the leader of the SWAT team.  We got a very young and, relatively thin, Beau Bridges as a father that beats his kid.  Jack Klugman (Quincy M.D.) plays a degenerate gambler.  David Jannsen (the fugitive) and Gena Rowlands play a bickering married couple.  Walter Pidgeon is a pickpocket.  Some guy plays a catholic priest, there's another young couple, a guy in charge of maintenance at the stadium, etc.  Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford, and Dick Enberg appear as themselves.  The president (I believe it was an actor, not the real thing) appears in his motorcade on the way to the game.  There's footage of a real football game but it was just a college game so it's not easy for us to buy them as genuine professionals.  Ah, who am I kidding?  I bought it.

We're introduced to the cast in separate stories as they make their way to the game.  Their stories, for the most part, don't intersect although the gambler and the priest end up sitting next to each other at the game.  A few of the stories are actually somewhat compelling if entirely generic.  The gamber, as played by Klugman, is a nastily funny man who is shown being dangled from his ankles outside of a high rise building due to his inability to make good on his excessive gambling debts.  He's got one chance to make it to tomorrow alive.  Hint:  that one chance involves the Super Bowl and more gambling.  The priest is shown checking his watch as he gives his sermon.  Beau Bridges is shown smacking his kid at the ticket booth.  There are other characters in here as well (see my list above) doing stuff before they get to the big game.

Then there's the sniper who puts on his rifle concealing jacket, buys a ticket (same day since the Super Bowl must not of been popular in those days), walks into the stadium, up some stairs, picks a lock, feeds a couple guard dogs some steak, and climbs up to the top of the tower so he can wait for the perfect moment to strike.  The early parts of the picture were treated not unlike a slasher movie where we see things from the killer's perspective never even catching a glimpse of his identity.  The closest we get is when we see him climbing the tower ladder from a distance.

I won't spoil what happens except to say that not much happens (outside of the game) for most of the picture.  It's a bit of a slow burn although I can't say it ever got boring.  It's very 70s in that it meanders a bit, plods along, takes its time, etc.  Hell, the sniper is spotted during halftime but the cops don't do anything about it for fear of causing a panic.  The maintenance guy attempts to take the law into his own hands and get's butted in the head with a rifle and pushed off the tower to his death for his troubles.  At one point, we see the sniper time his shot to match up with the shot from a referees pistol but we never see if he shot anyone or not.  Also, don't think referees use pistols anymore precisely for the reason that some insane sniper might be waiting to time his killshot to match the referee's shot.  Anyway, the last twenty to twenty five minutes of this thing are gloriously glorious mayhem.

Roger Ebert reviewed this picture back when it came out and gave it one star claiming:

"The movie tells us nothing at all about the gunman. But it takes great pains to establish other characters who are in the movie for a dreadfully simple reason: One by one, they will be shot. The clue is in the decision to keep the gunman anonymous. The movie's totally uninterested in the reasons behind his action; he's necessary only as an agent of violence, so we can be entertained by his victims. I found that disturbing."

I don't entirely disagree.  At the same time, lighten up young Ebert!  Had this been a low budget schlocker with a no-name cast I wonder what his reaction would have been?  Well, I'm sure it would have been the same because Roger Ebert seems like a man of principle.  He tends to stick to his guns and I respect that about him.  Hell, maybe it is reprehensible that they would make a fun movie about an anonymous sniper picking off people at the Super Bowl.  It's almost too prescient.  A bombed out blimp flying into the superdome is one thing but a sniper (think Charles Whitman or later, John Allan Muhammad) hits a little bit close to home.  Basically, what he got here is a slasher movie with a giant cast and a large budget.  Ultimately, when the slasher is gunned down, we get no real satisfaction since the guy was just a device.  He was the meteor, the earthquake, the raging inferno, the big wave.  He wasn't a person.  He doesn't necessarily need a motive, but he needs a face, a personality.   It's almost like remaking Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer as something fun.  The filmmakers attempt to tack on some deeper meaning to the preceedings when Balsam and Heston, standing over the dead killer try to make sense of it all saying something along the lines of "we have no idea who he is, but in the next few days we'll learn a whole hell of a lot" (commenting on the media or some shit).  Whatever.

Shit man, I lost my train of thought.  I didn't mean to make it sound like I didn't enjoy this thing because I did.  I enjoyed the hell out of it.  The shit involving whether or not to evacuate the coliseum or sending in the SWAT team was some good shit.  When the shooting starts, this shit gets visceral.  I'll close by saying that Two Minute Warning may or may not be morally reprehensible but in the end it's a gamer and lots of gamers have loose morals.   

Ricco The Mean Machine (1973)

Ricco The Mean Machine is a weird title for this picture when you consider that the title character isn't really mean at all. I mean, here's a guy that goes away to prison for two years while the local mafia kingpin kills his father and steals his girlfriend. When Ricco finally gets out, he's got this laid back surfer dude type attitude about the whole thing. Upon first seeing his sister and her husband, they roll around on the ground laughing. His mom tries to hand him his father's gun in the hopes that he'll kill Don Vito (the aforementioned mafia kingpin)and avenge his father, but Ricco replies that he'll handle it his own way. His "way" could be cooler.

Starring as Ricco, we got the son of Robert Mitchum. Aside from his surfer hair cut, he looks just like his father. That's where the comparisons end. He's terrible in this thing, alternating between dazed looks and stilted laughter. His character hooks up with Barbara Bouchet, who plays a slutty counterfeitter and also the cousin of his stolen girlfriend. She looks great naked and seems like she'd be a lot of fun to hang out with.

My favorite character was probably Don Vito played by Arthur Kennedy, who looked familiar. This is a mobster who has built his empire on soap. Soap, which he exports across the world. Also, if you cross him you might get the shit kicked out of you by his henchman and dropped in a large vat of the stuff. If you get caught sleeping with his girl you might find your dick being cut off with a switchblade and shoved into your screaming mouth as you're dropped in the stuff. This actually happens and it's shockingly realistic. It's no surprise then that Don Vito can't stand his own product. At the very least, don't wash your face with it.

Anyway, this is a pretty good exploitation movie. We got a main character who sorta accomplishes shit by accident. I enjoyed the interview where Robert Mitchum's son talked about how he's a blackbelt in kenpo karate. You can't tell by watching this picture. The fight scenes are laughably bad. I counted three moments where Ricco would have been killed if not for the intervention of someone else. He also doesn't really think things through too well. He breaks into Don Vito's fortress to talk to his ex-girlfriend but didn't come up with an escape plan. Once again, he's saved by the smarts of someone else (in this case, Bouchet). So, he's not your typical badass I guess. Even after Vito has the rest of his family murdered (spoiler) all Ricco can think to do is sit out side Vito's front gate with a pistol ready to fire. I'm not sure if things are going to end well for Ricco.

So, it's enjoyable and you see a guy's penis snipped off and shoved into his mouth (balls first). If that's the kind of picture you want to see then look no further.

Sorcerer (1977)

William Friedkin's Sorcerer, a remake of Clouzot's Wages of Fear, is unabashedly a man's movie; made for men and about men doing manly things. A picture packed full of violence, explosions, endless fires, truck driving, dynamite, sweat, dirt, etc. Women need not apply. The only woman that makes an appearance in this thing is a bride at a wedding...and she's got a black eye. So, take that for what it's worth. This is not really a good date movie. It is, however, every bit the masterpiece Wages of Fear is. I'd wager it's even a bit better.

The picture spends it's first hour character building. We're introduced to four criminals, notably Scanlan (Roy Scheider) and Victor (Bruno Cremer). As the movie begins, they're spread throughout the world engaged in a variety of nefarious activities; bombing buildings, stealing from high stakes bingo games, gun fights, car chases, etc. Eventually, unaware of each others existence, they converge in a small Venezuelan town, a town controlled by a major oil conglomerate. When an oil well erupts in flames 200 hundred miles away, it's determined that the only way to put out the fire is to dynamite it. Trouble is, the only dynamite within thousands of miles is in the town (200 miles away). Even more troubling, the dynamite is sweating nitroglycerin. One little nudge could set it off. As one character points out, "We can barely move this shit 10 feet and you want us to move it two hundred miles!?" When money is burning, what choice does one have?

A plan is established. Load the boxes of volatile dynamite onto two trucks and drive to the oil site. Who would be stupid enough to undertake such a task? If only we knew of some criminals who, with the law closing in, might want a way out of town. Also, twenty thousand dollars each. At the risk of life and limb. They load the boxes in the trucks and pack them in sand to keep them from shifting. Scanlan takes one truck, Bruno the other. Each with a co-pilot to guide them through the excessively rough terrain, of which there is plenty.

Shit man, this is as tense a picture as I've seen (and I've seen Wages of Fear). Along the way, these guys encounter vicious storms, blissfully unaware natives, hijackers, treacherous bridges (including a scene on a rope suspension bridge that had me completely on edge, knuckles whitening - the thing didn't look like it could hold me, let alone a 2 ton truck) pot holes, mountains, roads encroached upon by a seemingly unending rainforest, etc. Friedkin periodically treats us to shots of the dynamite, as they shift in the sand or collect rainwater from the storms. He's at the top of his game.

Friedkin has given us some of the greatest car chases in motion pictures (The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A.) What he does here is just as amazing, if a little different. He presents us with two trucks, often moving at a snails pace, and yet it's as intense and exciting as anything he's ever filmed. We still get the traditional vehicle's eye view, but the stakes have never been this high.

Scheider and Cremer are in excellent form as the two drivers, both saying more with their faces than they ever could with words. Pay particularly close attention to a scene near the end where the camera hold's Scheider's face for an extended moment; sweat and grime covered, unshaven, crooked frown. Yet his eyes say all we need to know.

How the fuck did this movie fail? It nearly derailed Friedkin's career. A box office and critical flop. Today it's something else...and more than deserving of the proper treatment. Get this fucking thing on Criterion now (and no, not as a supplement to Wages of Fear). The current DVD treatment is piss poor, not even widescreen. The images are beautiful, the action extraordinary. At times, I felt like I was watching a Herzog film with Scheider as Aguirre. This one's not to be missed. Like Wages of Fear, Sorcerer ends in irony...only, none of that hoity-toity French kind. Nope, it's a good, old fashioned, American brand of irony.

p.s. I'm trying to review a movie every weekday. this one counts as friday.

Prime Cut (1972)

You know how movies like Fast Food Nation (and various documentaries - none of which I have seen) depict, to put it mildly, an unhealthy beef industry? Well, I'm not sure any of them can top Prime Cut which, in a brilliant opening credit sequence, posits that sometimes human cadavers get mixed in with cattle and end up as sausage. This sequence begins with the unloading of the cows and continues through with such niceties as the hammering of their heads, the cutting up of limbs, the loading of parts onto conveyor belts, and the condensing of various unsavory bits into a machine which squeezes everything together into a paste that ends up as sausage. Along the way, we catch a quick glimpse of a naked male ass that somehow becomes a part of the process. One of the "cow" parts on the conveyor belt has a wristwatch. A guy (aptly named Weenie) follows these particular parts throughout the process, while munching on cold sausage, eventually packaging up the finished bits and sending them off to Chicago (the movie takes place outside of St. Louis). All of this takes place as the credits slide onto the screen accompanied by Lalo Schifrin's cues. It's one of the more original openings I've seen.

Turns out that slaughterhouse is run by Mary Ann (Gene Hackman), a former Chicago mobster who got sick of playing second banana in the big city. So, he moved to farm country where he could operate his own business. The beef industry is too legitimate, however, so he also deals in drugs and sex slavery on the side. It turns out that the human sausage links were once this mob guy sent down by his boss in Chicago to collect a debt from Mary Ann. His former boss, upon receiving the package, dispatches an enforcer (Nick played by Lee Marvin) to get the money and maybe settle a few scores. I like Hackman, but he's not a match for Lee Marvin.

I enjoyed this picture. We got some good scenes (and one great one). Marvin plays his character the only way he knows how: tough (note: I haven't seen Cat Ballou). Although, in a bit of a twist, they also give him a sensitive side. In one of the more risque scenes, Marvin and a couple of his men, arrive at Mary Ann's slaughter house, to talk. They arrive as he's auctioning off drugged out girls kept naked and non-lucid inside cattle pens. One of these girls is a very naked Sissy Spacek (in her first major role) who, at one point, whispers "help me". He does. He brings her back to his hotel, buys her a dress (it's see through) and takes her out to a nice dinner (a scene echoed in Pretty Woman). When other patrons begin staring at her visible nipples Marvin gives them a staredown (obviously they relent) and treats Spacek to a wry smile. I don't think his intent was to give her a revealing dress. He's just not good at those sort of things.

Gene Hackman is good as the villain, a slightly more sinister Lex Luthor. First off, he's been saddled with Mary Ann as a name so you know he's probably always had to act tough. In the first scene between him and Marvin, he's shown eating cow guts. At first he smiles alot, laughs, etc. When Marvin pisses him off he looks like he's about to fly off the handle for a moment, but then he quickly bursts into a laugh. His views on forced prostitution are simply "cow flesh....girl flesh...all the same to me." He's not all bad though. His brother Weenie is the supervisor of the slaughterhouse. Apparently, he makes a slave's wage since he can only afford to live in a room in the lousiest hotel in town. Also, the only thing he seems to eat are sausages which he likely stole off the assembly line. In an amusing scene, he and Mary Ann wrestle in the kitchen (a fight that goes on and on) while the accountants tally up the cash, none of which seems to make it's way into Mary Ann's brother's pockets. Come to think of it, I guess Mary Ann is a "son of a bitch", a sentiment shared by Weenie.

The best scene (the great one I alluded to earlier) of the picture takes place at a local fair, the site of an arranged money pick up between Mary Ann and Nick. The deal goes bad (the money is switched with cow organs) and some violence erupts. The whole thing culminates in a wheat field chase with Nick and Spacek (character named Poppy) fleeing from one of those hay bailer machine things. It cuts and gathers up the grass in the front and then shits out a bail of hay in the back. Anyway, what's great about this scene is the way it ends. Nick's driver crashes his limo into the front of the machine, gets out, shoots the driver and then we watch for a few moments while the bailer chews up the limo and lays out a bail of metal in the back.

The climax was a little too familiar but I liked how it began with Nick (who previously had refused the use of guns - as if it was insulting that he would even need one) loading up with an arsenal as they drive to the final confrontation with Mary Ann. There's a nice moment when Weenie stabs Nick with a sausage. There's a gunfight amongst sunflowers. Marvin even finds time to free some girls that were raised from childhood to be sex slaves (a local orphanage turns them out faster than Mary Ann turns out sausage links). In some ways, it's like that movie Taken except it doesn't jump directly from one action scene to the next spending little to no time developing Neeson's Bourne-esque character beyond the fact that he's incredibly lucky and trying to make up for lost time with his daughter. Here, we got some small character moments like the look Marvin gives when he finds a comatose girl in a flophouse clutching a fistful of nickels (her payment for sexual services) and a line full of derelicts waiting to use her. Or the bond between Marvin and his driver which is conveyed without words. Or the non-generic score by Schifrin. I wish the studio would put shit out like this these days. Good job on the part of Michael Ritchie (the director, whose credits also include The Bad News Bears and Fletch).

Replicant (2001)

You never know what kinda shit you might find under your bed. I got home, after a hard day's work, to my sweltering apartment and realized I had nothing to watch. No Netflix, no recently purchased DVDs that have been sitting on my television for weeks, no cable TV. I thought about reading for about a minute to the point that I even took out a book I've been slogging my way through. Too fucking hot. That's when it hit me. Holy shit, I have one of those VCR machines. Under my bed was a box of VHS tapes. Surely there was something in there. Well, I pulled the sucker out, opened it up, and Lo and behold the first thing I set my eyes upon was this plastic wrapped, never been watched, copy of a Jean Claude Van Damme picture from earlier in the decade called Replicant. Didn't even remember where I got the thing...or even if I paid for it. Maybe it was a gift. Oh well, this sure as shit beats reading.

Fuck man, this picture is actually pretty fucking good, way better than I expected. I usually don't go for this direct to video action movie type shit. Too often they look cheap, are full of amateur actors, and too boring for my tastes. Well, this one looks good enough to show in an actual theater. It's full of very good action scenes, good acting (Yes, even from JCVD), humor, and some of the better stunt work I've seen in a while. It's a shame this thing's been trapped under my bed for the last 3-5 years.

What we got here is the story of a cop (Michael Rooker) one hour past retirement (interesting twist on the cliche) sticking around a little longer to chase a serial killer
he's obsessed over for the last few years. The killer, JCVD with long hair and looking like a heroin addict, kills mothers that he perceives to be unfit. He beats them to death, cuts them, burns them, and leaves the child to die. This is his M.O. and also what he does in that first scene. Rooker arrives just as the killer is leaving, saves the baby, and then pursues the killer. Holy shit, their encounter in the parking garage is a thing of beauty as Rooker clings to a gate while JCVD drives right through it, flipping Rooker over the length of the car at high speed. This one's full of terrific stunt work, the kind that they don't even attempt these days. Rooker (or, I should say his double) gets the shit kicked out of him in this movie.

So, the killer gets away and Rooker still retires (even receives a congratulatory call from the killer at his party). Rooker's not going to let this shit go so he accepts recruitment into an elite government anti-terrorist organization known as the NSF (National Security Force). These guys are on the cutting edge of science and have devised a cloning process that allows them to replicate JCVD (they found a hair at a crime scene) in the hope of using the replicant to catch the killer (replicant's have a genetic memory and also a telepathic bond with whatever they were replicated from). Unfortunately, once birthed they require a few hours to learn things like "sit, stand, walk" and also complex gymnastic moves. So, now Rooker will be teamed with this replicant and together will be tasked with catching the killer. Rooker has reservations, wonders what if the replicant turns bad, it's in his makeup, etc. He's told that "at the end of the day, a replicant is disposable." He's also like a dog apparently.

Well, this is it. This is the best performance of Jean Claude's career (and yes, I've seen JCVD and really liked it). As the killer, he is pretty much one-note but as the replicant we feel great sympathy for the guy, the ultimate fish out of water. He's trained like a dog, humiliated, told to sit, constantly handcuffed. He begins to understand this as just the way things are. Rooker treats him like shit at first. He brings him home at one point and when his kid gets hurt Rooker jumps to the conclusion that the replicant did it and reigns blows down upon him. He feels pretty bad when he learns that his actual dog, and not the guy he treats like a dog, was responsible. This is just like that movie Jet Li did, Danny the Dog, only it came out a few years earlier. This one's also better. We actually start to wonder if the replicant will become like the killer, maybe even join him. Our sympathies start to wane a bit and then he does something like save a hooker from her lifestyle and we're right back with him. He hardly speaks, but does a good job conveying this performance through his eyes, facial expressions, body language. He is like a dog, actually...almost completely lovable...even eats dog food at one point before learning about ice cream. Of course now he's going to expect ice cream all the time. It's impressive that he didn't phone this part in.

The developing relationship between Rooker and the replicant drives the picture. The story involving the serial killer is less effective. We got your typical product of an abusive childhood. The most interesting thing about the killer is he still visits his invalid mother in the nursing home. Of course, he forces her to look at photos of his victims but at least he makes the attempt which is more than I can say about several absentee sons and daughters I might know about.

The action scenes are almost all top notch. There's a solid bar fight, a nifty explosion, and the coup de grace is a chase through the old folks home where the killer uses whatever he can get his hands on (old guy in wheel chair, old guy's portable IV, another guy in wheel chair) to fend off his pursuers. This leads directly to another parking garage chase scene with the killer driving an ambulance and Rooker holding on for dear life. I'm trying, but having a hard time, to remember a theatrical action scene in the last year that tops this one. Maybe that has something to do with Hong Kong director, Ringo Lam. I don't know, I've never seen any of his other shit, but I'm planning on it now.

I also appreciated that this thing was filmed in Seattle and even acknowledged as Seattle. None of that "let's film it in Toronto and call it New York City" type bullshit. It was a good choice to have the killer JCVD wear his hair long so that when he fought the replicant JCVD they could actually use a double and we would buy it. When these guys fight it's pretty funny though. They are exactly alike, know each other's moves. Lots of ineffective roundhouse kicks and punching each other in the fists.

To sum up: Holy shit. I liked it, it's good. It might even be better than Timecop....or maybe I'm just over hyping it. My expectations were pretty god damned low. I liked so much about this movie though, the action, the ideas (something about free will and whether it's ethical to clone something for the purpose of harvesting organs or catching a killer or whatever), the stunts, and the performances. I loved the moment when Rooker walks the replicant out into the sunlight (his first time outside, ever) and asks an NSF agent for his sunglasses (to give to the replicant). The agent protests, says they cost 500 bucks, but relents. Rooker gives the replicant his sunglasses and keeps the expensive pair for himself. It's a little moment, but a good one. I also liked that in the end JCVD saved a Rooker and a hooker (sorry).

Vigilante (1983)

Back in the early 80s New York City (and it's many burroughs) was not a safe place to live. Gangs ruled the streets. Thousands of people were murdered every second in NYC alone as the result of gun violence, car violence, or crow bar violence. Thousands! It had gotten so bad that a guy couldn't even go out after dark to "get a pack of cigarrettes" from the corner store (according to Fred Williamson, leader of the vigilantes in Vigilante). The police force was basically useless; understaffed, underpaid, undersupplied (no kevlar, rude 911 operators, etc), etc. The courts were just as ineffectual, full of corrupt attorneys and judges. The prisons, with their revolving doors, weren't much better. We were losing our streets to the scum.

Against this filthy backdrop, stands a man, a man with blinders on, a man that believes in the system. Eddie Marino (Robert Forster), a good guy, a good mechanic, good husband, good father, etc. It's a perfect life kinda scenario. His auto shop buddies are into the whole vigilantism thing, but not Eddie. He has a sweet little home in the suburbs, a place where crime isn't welcome. He spends his days at the shop and his evenings and weekends with his little boy and his wife (picnics, radio control airplanes, the whole works, etc). Things are going pretty damned great if he does say so himself. The only way things could get screwed up would be something terrible happening. Perhaps a relative dying, a fire, foreclosure, maybe a dead pet or something like that.

Anyway, after his boy is shot dead and his wife beaten and raped by gang members, Eddie's outlook changes a bit. Maybe that vigilante bullshit the guys down at the shop are into isn't such misguided bullshit after all.

Still, despite this tragedy, Eddie continues to trust in the system. The system didn't kill his kid and rape his wife, some gang did. I'd like to take a moment to comment on the gang. This is the kind of gang we only see in the movies (particularly, movies from the 80s). We got a Puerto Rican (the leader), a black guy, an Asian, a white guy, and some blonde bimbo (she's dating the leader). This is an equal opportunity gang. Skin color isn't nearly as important as whether or not you're willing to pull the trigger on a young child cowering behind a shower curtain or whether you're willing to beat a housewife and violate her in the backyard in full view of her cowardly suburbanite neighbors. Very progressive gang as you can see.

So, like I said, Eddie still believes in the system. He cooperates with the Assistant D.A., signs some papers, wants to see the bastards punished for what they did. Unfortunately, the case is assigned to a corrupt judge, an "asshole" according to his attorney. The defense attorney is played by Joe Spinell (Maniac) and therefore pretty sleazy. He takes bribes from the gang member that shot Eddie's son. I'm assuming Spinell shared those bribes with the judge (Vincent Beck) otherwise they don't really make sense. We'll just assume I guess. Maybe I'm not really understanding the way the system works is also possible. Anyway, Eddie doesn't really think a two year suspended sentence is much of a punishment and, considering this was just the indictment, it doesn't really sit well. The killer goes free and Eddie gets thrown in jail for trying to beat the shit out of the judge. Some system we got here.

I liked this picture even if it's sorta just a highly entertaining Dirty Harry knock off. Forster gives a good solid performance. Is there a more underrated actor out there? He's one of those actors that seems like he's not acting most of the time. He always just seems mildly uncomfortable. When he walks through his house (after his son was murdered and wife raped) his reaction is to almost have no reaction at all. It's unimaginable to him, he's in a daze, just sorta simmering ready to boil over, but not quite getting there. We don't see the guy actually "act" until the courtroom scene. I'd argue that the more showy he gets ("you killed my son!", etc) the less effective his performance is.

Fred Williamson is the other big actor in the cast. He plays a guy named Nick, a friend of Eddies, but not a good friend. For most of the picture, he just looks cool and walks around with his hands in his jacket pockets (I believe Williamson trademarked this particular look). This is the kind of guy who, when chasing a drug dealer, will stop to pick up the wheelchair bound guy that the drug dealer knocked over before continuing his pursuit. He's also pretty ruthless in his beatings; lots of kickings while they're down, dangling out of windows, shotgunning mob kingpins, etc. I liked his brief exchange with a hood walking on the sidewalk:

Hood: You're in my way.
Fred: No shit.

Steve James shows up in a small role as a young idealistic police officer. He wants Williamson and his boys to knock off the vigilante bullshit already so he can do his job. There was a time when James was one of my favorite actors (appearing in American Ninja, Delta Force, Brother From Another Planet, etc). He had a strong physical presence, a gift for gab, and was someone who could hold his own against the likes of Williamson. Unfortunately, James died back in 1993 as a result of pancreatic cancer. Would have been nice to see where his career might have gone. Here, he's just a rookie cop in over his head. He exits the movie when - spoiler - he and his partner (some old white guy) are brutally murdered by the same thugs that destroyed Eddie's life (oh yeah, forgot to mention his wife decides to leave him). I assumed this was some sort of frame up. The thugs drove a van that resembled the vigilante mobile. Maybe get the cops to take on the vigilantes and get off their backs. Nope, it was just the thugs being bloodthirsty and not thinking more than one step ahead. If I have one complaint with the movie, it's with the script, which doesn't seem too interested in following through with some of its own ideas.

I also expected Eddie to have a few more layers. He basically goes directly from point A to point B. One moment he's a nice guy. Then, he's capable of gunning down crooks in cold blood. The scene where Eddie blows away the gang leader in his pad (I laughed when I realized this guy, for all his stealing and raping, still lived in a studio apartment) is a good one. Williams does something in this scene that might cause him to reconsider his path in life, or at least give him something to regret, but like other issues that pop up from time to time in this picture, it's never addressed again. Ok, another spoiler, Williamson blew away the girlfriend of the gang leader as she was coming out of the bathroom (it was an undesired reaction). He gives a look immediately following that implies moderate sorrow. That's pretty much it. Conflicting emotions are not where this picture's heart lies.

There's a subplot involving a gangster named Mr.T who is shown on the news chastising the media for stereotyping Italians as gangsters. Next he is shown doing some sort of money for drugs exchange down on the docks before - spoiler - being blown away by Fred Williamson. Williamson does some pretty nifty detective work to make his way to Mr. T. He beats up a small time corner dealer ("where do you get your stuff?") which leads him to a pimp, who he runs off the road, which leads him to the head of the New York Mafia who apparently, is not against making deals down by the docks in person, and alone. I respect that.

William Lustig (Maniac) did a pretty good job directing this one. His action scenes aren't perfect. There's a car chase that's unexciting, has no sense of scope or direction, and goes on for too long. There's plenty of blood, a little nudity (not the good kind) and a scene where a gang member's woman gets propelled from a bedroom into the bathroom (and into a tub) with a shotgun. Anyway, this is a solid one full of good characters, despicable actions, and I'm sure there were some other characteristics. Check it out.

Jungleground (1995)

I've been a fan of Roddy Piper ever since I saw him in They Live. If there's a former wrestler out there that has the goods to be a legitimate action star than he is probably the one. He's got a great physical presence along with some adequate charisma and the ability to deliver a good line or two. Unfortunately, hollywood never really saw it the way I do and so he's been forced to work on the outskirts trudging through some pretty awful shit that I am too lazy to look up on imdb and name for you. I did see him in Hell Comes to Frog Town which was a pretty fun post apocalyptic story about the last fertile man on earth or some shit like that. I recommend that one. And, now, I've seen his low budget actioner called Jungleground which takes elements from a picture like Surving The Game (or, The Most Dangerous Game for all you film snobs) and fuses it with the urban gangland aspects of Judgement Night and then surgically removes the entire budget. Anyway, wanted to knock off a quick review or two before I go home for the holidays so here you are. My long anticipated write up for a Roddy Piper picture that no one has heard of and that wasn't even made in the 80s even though it feels like it was.

Jungleground is the kind of picture set in an urban wasteland and likely filmed in Canada somewhere to capture an authentic look and feel of that type of society. There are basically two locations; the east side of a bridge and the west side of that same bridge. I can't remember which side "jungleground" was on but it was probably the bad side. The picture opens with a cocky little pizza delivery boy who doubles as a drug runner for his boss who I guess is named Poppa being sent deep into jungleground to make a delivery. It's his first time so Poppa sends along a hired gun but the poor boy sets off an explosion after ringing the doorbell of a broken down tenement and the hired gun is dispatched by a boy armed with an uzi on roller skates who is named gameshow and thinks he's being clever when he says "the price is your life" (I guess he is referencing "the price is right".) The explosion looked pretty cool anyway.

Roddy Piper plays a police lieutenant named Jake Cornell and he lives on the good side of the river with his artist girlfriend in their spacious loft. He spends most of his time working undercover in jungleground and his scars and traumas from everyday life are what fuels his girlfriend's art which appear to be badly rendered metal sculptures of various nightmarish things indicative of life in the jungleground or so we are told. She's pretty good at what she does though because on this night she is hosting a gala celebrating her art and also some dealer tells her so but later recants and claims it's all shit because she won't sleep with him. This dealer tries to cause a rift between the artist and Piper with a slew of umemorable insults but Piper just responds by saying "I just figure you're like a kid that hasn't been toilet trained yet. He doesn't mean to offend with the load of shit he's been saddled with." That shut the guy up real quick. His artist girlfriend is a real character though because she doesn't accuse Jake of sabotaging her career like most women would in such a picture. She loves him for standing up to the asshole and paraphrases Rachel Ticotin during a nice rooftop scene "grab me now or lose me forever."

Later, some cop named Wilson shows up at the party and it's all downhill from there. Some bad shit is going down at a jungleground bus station and Cornell is needed to oversee a deal, make sure things don't get too fucked up. His job is just to stand by and look inconspicuous (he fails miserably) while a couple of other undercovers broker the deal. I don't know man, this is fucking jungleground. A few white guys (and a lady) pretending to read the paper in the world's most dangerous bus terminal is probably going to stand out. Still, these are not the world's smartest drug dealers so things go okay until one of them decides to pinch the undercover female cop's ass and she unloads a clip into his chest. I think she was new because a seasoned undercover would probably just have laughed off such a gesture, maybe even flashed a little breast with a wink but this cop was into women's lib and shit. Her pride got them all killed except, of course, for Piper who is captured by the gang and given a chance to live. All he has to do is survive the night in jungleground long enough to make it to the other side of the river.

The movie has an interesting view on gangs. The gang is led by a scenery chewing JR Bourne as Odin. His war chief is played by Peter Williams and is named Dragon. Fuck, these guys all have names from some sort of mythology or other; Well, ok, I guess Thor was the only other one. Some other names were Posey, Diesel, and Ferret. So, there is a good old fashioned power struggle taking place between Odin and Dragon. Dragon's mission is to rid jungleground of pushers and to clean up the neighborhood. Odin says that's his mission but he rarely backs it up with action. He has a point. If these guys want to be a self respecting gang they need to bring in the money somehow. In a part of the city even the cops are afraid to enter drugs seems like the logical choice. Things get a bit skewed when Dragon's young brother (the rollerskating gameshow) is accidentaly killed when, while pursuing Piper, he skates up a ramp and into a hanging car engine that knocks him to the ground and then falls on him. Will Dragon blindly seek vengeance on Piper even though he knows it wasn't really his fault and that Piper may be the best remaining chance to clean up jungleground?

I'm trying hard to defend this one but it was really hard to get past the miniscule budget. I mean, Piper is great in this thing but no one else distinguishes themselves and quite a few should be embarrassed by their performances. I think my favorite scene involved a set of gangland twins dispatched by Odin to go to Piper's girlfriends apartment and hold her hostage until dawn at which point they will kill her I guess (or worse). These scenes contain the film's most disturbing sequences as the twins duct taped her mouth and then would torture her by duct taping her nose shut and then only ripping the tape off right before she passed out. This girl, her name was Sam, was a bit resourceful though and devised a semi-brilliant escape plan.

I forgot to mention the picture's biggest set piece involving the trial of Roddy Piper in a scene that reminded me of barter town from that Mad Max Thunderdome picture. Also, Piper is dressed in a toga and Odin addressed the masses from a balcony. It's probably the only time the picture achieved any kind of worthy atmosphere and it didn't even bother me too much that it was ripped off. Fuck, I am going back and forth on this one. This picture does some things pretty well I guess. They take the old tired "hooker with a heart of gold" cliche and, while they don't do much with it, have her take a bullet in the gut while helping Piper. She doesn't die (at least not onscreen) but Piper still leaves the poor, possibly mortally wounded, girl in the company of a bunch of construction workers and apparently these are not the ogling type but i still wonder what happened to the broad. Scene could have turned into one of those disturbing type of gang bang pornos they used to make in the 70s but luckily the director had more class than that I guess.

Also, one of the gang members is a black cowboy that brandishes a pair of six shooters. I like it when movies twist some stereotypes around like that. Unfortunately, his inclusion leads to one of Piper's worst lines when he says "hi ho silver" after dispatching him. Well fuck it, some of this picture is shit and some of it entertained. How much shit can you tolerate I guess is the question of the moment. I can tolerate a lot so there you go. The movie is full of exploding cars, gun battles, and some hand to hand combat type scenes where Piper finally gets to display the moves that originally made him famous. Piper is a brawler in this one. He gets his ass kicked at times but keeps coming back. Please, for the love of god, someone put this guy in a decent picture.

The Punisher (1989)

After seeing Punisher War Zone I decided to go back and visit the one that started it all but then I learned that these films aren't really connected, there's no trilogy...each one is what they like to call in Hollywood a "reboot". I guess that's become popular these days since Hollywood is constantly fucking up our comic book movies and needing to re-do them. I've never heard the term used for any other genre. Why can't they "reboot" the Star Wars prequels or The Happening or The Hills Have Eyes sequel to the remake? Anyway, it turned out I had never seen this one which surprised me a little. I always felt the punisher was one of the more interesting comic book heroes (I think I was the only one). His is the rare case where his alter ego, Frank Castle (or is punisher the alter ego? I forget how this works), is actually dead, not in the literal sense. The moment his family was wiped out Castle ceased to exist and he became the punisher. There's no going back to Castle. His is not really a story of redemption so much as a story of vengeance that can only end when he dies. Like many heroes, the punisher works mostly at night because, I guess, that's when most criminals go to work. During the day he lurks in his subterranean lair (it's a sewer) and prays in the nude to a god that will not listen. He's not asking for forgiveness or answers or anything like that. He knows he's going to hell. I think he's just lonely.

Anyway, this punisher guy is played by Dolph Lundgren in this one, the first one. He definitely looks the part except I can't, for the life of me, figure out why they didn't give him the skull t-shirt. That was a mistake I think since it's sort of his identifiable mark. I could see a thirteen year old today coming across this picture on TBS and quickly changing the channel when he so called realizes this is one of those crummy 80s pictures that Dad likes to watch and not a comic book movie that all thirteen year old boys are required to watch. That kid would be wrong and would probably grow up to be at least a fraction worse for it. This is a much much better picture than it has any right to be.

The opening credits are usually a good place to start and these are some good ones. We're treated to comic book drawings of villains being shot off the screen as an honest to god real orchestral pulse pounding score serenades us into euphoria. The movie begins much like the 2nd reboot began; with an asshole mafioso being acquitted. He stops to talk to the press and says a line we actually believe he believes that goes like "if a man is innocent, justice prevails" and then he has this to say about the so called punisher "if he ever shows up within a thousand yards of me, he'll find out what the word punished really means." Like most mafioso douchebags, this guy is not really a man of his word and he will soon find out what the word retribution means in spectacularly brutal fashion. Of course, this is the 1980s so the violence isn't quite as over the top as War Zone but it's certainly still to be appreciated. We don't need to see organs flying out of bodies or whatever to understand the consequences of the punisher's actions.

I'm not sure why all the internet fanboys weren't up in arms when this thing came out. The 1st Punisher reboot caught a lot of flak for being set in Miami and not New York City which is apparently the only place these stories can take place. Well this fucking thing was filmed in Sydney Australia ya bunch of fuckos and I have to think that's a step below Miami. The city itself is never named but how the fuck can Punisher not even be in America? It's an abysmally awful choice by the director Mark Goldblatt and his studio New World Australia. This is such a slap in the face to all of us fucking Americans. How would you douchebags like it if we took an Australian treasure like Crocodile Dundee or something, put him in a movie and set the god damned thing in New York or Los Angeles? Christ.

Anyway, the cast in this picture is pretty impressive. I mentioned Dolph Lundgren but haven't even gotten to the real casting coup yet; Oscar winning actor Lou Mother fucking Gossett jr. Yeah, he's in this. He's Frank's old partner and current Sydney detective Jake Berkowitz. If it sounds like a white guy's name that's because it is. They replaced the white actor that was originally in the picture with a vacationing Lou Gossett who decided he needed some time away from the wife. Can't pass up a chance to grab an oscar winner, right? The name was already in the script so they kept it. He filmed his part in about ten minutes and is pretty much useless until the end and even then he's pretty fucking useless always showing up a few minutes after punisher leaves. He has one fantastic emotional scene with Punisher after Punisher has just been arrested for rescuing a bunch of mafia kids from the Yakuza (long story) where he addresses Punisher as Frank and tells him he's sick because of what he's done and what the fuck does he call 125 murders in five years to which Punisher responds "a work in progress."

I really enjoyed the performance of Jeroen Krabbe who played the mafia don as a somewhat sympathetic character who loves his son almost as much as he loves the family business. Kim Myori played the Yakuza crime boss named Lady Tanaka and was the kind of cold hearted bitch that would feed her brother a nice meal and slit his throat as soon as he was finished and, in fact, she did. Some hot blonde broad played her lieutenant the white blonde ninja or at least she did until punisher broke her neck. Punisher took a beating in this picture and I guess that makes sense because it's the first movie and he's still learning the ropes. At one point he's overwhelmed by a bunch of ninjas at an amusement park and placed on a torture device commonly referred to as the rack. We learn how far this guy is willing to go when he sees his only friend named Shakes the bum on an adjacent rack. Torture has no effect on a guy like the punisher, a guy with an incredibly high threshold for pain coupled with an absolute willingness to die. What about the torture of a close friend, a drunken bum that claims himself to be an actor, a guy that punisher plys with booze in exchange for information? Will that have an effect on the guy? Nope.

The only people that can get through to the guy are the children. Yes, punisher used to have two children of his own until they were blown up by the mob. He even has the picture and the dental records to prove it. Often he sees them reflected in the eyes of the mafia kids and then he becomes, for a brief moment anyway, a big softie. Wow, forgot a plot description so here is s a brief one for you: In five years time punisher has decimated the local mob to the point that the Yakuza can waltz in and take over. Yakuza make fun of Italian mafia and steal their children to sell into slavery. Italians try to make a deal and show up at a fancy restaurant but it's actually an ambush since apparently all the other diners (including a little old white lady) are working for Yakuza and shoot the place up which is hilarious since Lady Tanaka waltzes in and tells the few survivors about the poison they just drank. Anyway, Punisher rescues all the children except for one, you guessed it, the son of the boss. The boss and Punisher team up to rescue the boy with Punisher telling the boss "when this is over, you're dead." Can either of these two loveable outcasts be redeemed? Is punisher a man of his word? Why am I an hour and fifteen minutes into this thing with nary a naked breast in sight? I can answer the last one. Punisher has no use for women, no, just vengeance. Vengeance and children.

The Punisher Origins is an entertaining movie, a near forgotten gem from a time that time forgot, the time just before 1990. Lundgren is, like I mentioned earlier, good in the role except for his voice which at times seemed to be trying a little too hard to be menacing. English is not really his first language so maybe the guy was just trying to enunciate correctly. I tried to keep a count of dead guys but it didn't take long for me to throw up my arms and just give up. You'll probably be a bit surprised to learn that this picture is also a bit funny at times. I liked when the mob guys were on the pier waiting for a shipment to come in and one of them radioed a lookout named "red 2" and asked "what have you got" to which red 2 responded "bad kidneys...gotta take a leak." Lots of throwaway lines like that which enhanced the overall flavor of the picture and also the racist line where the one italian guy scoffs at the Yakuza 75-25 proposal and says "I'm not gonna be a salary boy to a bunch of nips". I didn't actually find that part funny at all. Racism is never funny. Well, wrapping up...what he have here is a pretty good action picture the likes of which the world has seen many times over but one that I can whole heartedly recommend. I just wish they had wrapped it up with a better fight. It's a pretty tired cliche where two guys wrestle for control of a gun, the gun goes off, and then one guy stands up and we think the guy on the ground must have been the one that was shot but no, we've been tricked, the guy that stood up was the one shot all along. Then again, I don't know if I've seen that cliche before 1989 or, more likely, I just don't remember. If this is the origin of that particular god awful cliche then I dub this the Casablanca of action pictures.

Tango and Cash (1989)

One or two more of these pictures and then I swear I'm going to have to move on. Tango and Cash is a selection from the sub genre of action films known as the "buddy picture". While not quite at the level of 48 hours or Lethal Weapon this is a pretty fucking good movie, the kind that if made today would probably go DTV with a 1/4 of the budget. I recently saw Punisher: War Zone. It kicked all sorts of ass. And yet, after my viewing I couldn't help but wonder why the hollywood action picture is changing so drastically. They've always had elements of hyper-violence, but now that violence comes equipped with Saw-like gore. This absolutely is not a bad thing (unless, of course, that gore comes with Saw-like edits)....but, but, but....where have all the titties gone? They used to be a staple of this type of picture. You cannot have a scene in a titty bar (another staple of action pictures) without titties. You just can't. I think the problem is that actresses today don't have the balls that they had in the past. They want a legitimate acting career and fear showing their goods might hinder their progress. Of course, we know this to be bullshit. Tango and Cash almost fell victim to this "progress". Teri Hatcher plays an "erotic dancer" who doesn't take off her top. Thankfully, I guess they hired real strippers for the strip club scene and we got to see some of them backstage. Hatcher kept her clothes on in her dance scene though. I haven't been this appalled since Jessica Alba didn't take off her top in Sin City. Fuck man, I'd even settle for some CG titties. Anything! I guess Americans are more comfortable watching a wheelchair bound elderly mafioso having his head cut off (great moment in Punisher) then seeing something like a beautiful pair of tits. It doesn't make much sense to me. Murder and mayhem are good. Sex, the thing responsible for life and hard ons, is not. It's a bad trend and it needs to change. I think I should just add "titties" as a blog category and be done with it.

Tango and Cash is the story of two Los Angeles narcotics officers named Cash (Kurt Russell) and Tango (Sylvester Stallone). These guys couldn't be more different. Tango is the buttened down stock broker type, referred to as "Armani with a badge" while Cash is the slovenly blue jeans and a t-shirt type. He's the kind of guy that gets a tear in a shirt and laments "this shirt cost me nine bucks!" Also, they work in different precincts so it's not like these guys are even partners. What they have in common is they've been costing Jack Palance (he plays a drug lord) millions. Palance, playing a guy named Yyves Perret, is not your typical drug lord though. Instead of just having these two cops killed he concocts an elaborate scheme to have them framed for the murder of an undercover agent and sent to prison. While in prison, they'll be tortured and killed by a group of thugs led by none other than the "maniac cop" (Robert Z'Dar), he with the enormous chin. Of course, no prison can contain Stallone (see Lock Up) and Russell, we know, is pretty good at breaking in and out of them as well (Escape from New York and L.A.) so immediately we realize Palance's scheme is flawed.

This picture actually has a great line up of villains. Besides Palance and D'Zar, we've also got the likes of Brion James (Blade Runner) playing a cockneyed thug and James Hong (also Blade Runner) as, I guess, Palance's left hand man (he's not very good and as far as I could tell did nothing but suck down his camel 100s). Even Clint Howard (Blackwoods) shows up briefly as Tango's cellmate Slinky. He's named so because the guy wraps his slinky around his head while he sleeps and shoots spittle on the ceiling. We're not even going to stop here. A Frank Oz looking mother fucker shows up as a key witness against Tango and Cash, an audio expert who "authenticated" the pivotal evidence at their trial. He's played by Michael Jeter. Fuck, even Seinfeld's Mr. Lipman makes an appearence as Tango and Cash's lawyer. It's pretty much a cast for the fucking ages. Oh yeah, a non-topless Teri Hatcher (is she Stallone's girlfriend, daughter, or...gasp...sister??). And former real-life criminal turned actor playing a cop Edward Bunker is in this thing. It's a dream cast.

Back to the story, amazingly Cash and Tango were able to cut a deal of only eighteen months in a country club like prison for murdering an undercover agent. Also amazingly, Palance has enough pull (i.e. cash) to get these guys rerouted to a maximum security joint, one that he basically controls. I assumed this because on the first night in prison, Cash and Tango are dragged from their cells by their prison mates and into an underground lair where Palance happend to be waiting. Perhaps, the funniest scene (and the gayest!) of the picture, was when Tango and Cash were taking their first shower together and they couldn't help but look at each other's junk. Tango calls Cash "minnie mouse" while Cash refers to Tango as "tripod". I think I'd rather be tripod. Then Cash dropped his soap. I hope the prison systems have improved since this picture. This place is a dump. Fires everywhere, papers flying out of cells, big bucks yelling things like "Cash! I'm gonna put brown sugar in your ass." Somehow, Tango and Cash are able maintain a sense of humor despite the impending sodomy ("loved you in Conan".)

Hell, this whole picture is pretty damned amusing. When one fellow officer insults Tango by calling him "Rambo" he replies "Rambo...is a pussy." The action scenes are well shot as well....at least until the final brouhaha at Palance's armored fortress. That thing was a little too nuts. There's a car chase in a parking garage that I'm still amazed by how well they pulled it off. The prison escape is a thing of beauty although highly unrealistic but, then again, who wants realism in their action pictures? This prison is one of those corrupt kinda joints where the inmates (in this case Robert D'Zar) appear to be running the place. The guards are taking naps apparently or, more likely, paid to look the other way. I did like Cash's deduction during their daring flight..."we jump to those wires and swing to the other side"...these are power lines..."as long as you're touching one wire and not touching the ground you won't fry.......right??". Fuck it, just do it man.

Their escape leads to the most titillating scene of the movie when Cash receives a massage from Teri Hatcher (ok, she's Tango's sister) and Tango barges in on them...."ok, I think it's in...oh yes, it's in..it's in". Is she talking about his slipped disc or his member? I'll let you decide. Until you see the picture. The movie concludes with a scene filled with potential that just doesn't really live up to it. Tango and Cash are equipped with an "RV from hell" and have a demolition derby with an army of Palance's bucketloaders, big rigs, and what I'm pretty sure was Big Foot (the truck). It wrapped up too quickly for my money. I did like how Palance aped Howard Hughes and watched from his safe room filled with a vast array of televisions and piss bottles (I made that last part up). This is the last buddy cop picture worth watching in my opinion and it's a good one to go out with. Any movie that ends with a freeze frame of a high five which leads into a Bad English song is definitely worth your time.

Blue Thunder (1983)

There was something about Roy Scheider that was just so damned likeable. I'm not really sure if he was ever playing anyone other than Roy Scheider (well, with the exception of Marathon Man and perhaps Romeo is Bleeding). In the majority of his roles he appeared to be a real guy thrust into some pretty extraordinary situations. I think it's because he reminded me of my father. He tended to portray cops in his pictures. My dad is a small town cop. In Jaws he was the police chief of a small New England town. My dad's the police chief of a small, albeit landlocked, New England town. Obviously, that's a very base comparison. They don't really look alike but they share many of the same mannerisms. A slight grimace when they walk. Exceedingly practical in their day to day lives. Hell, I even used to picture my dad as a passenger on the "Orca" with Quint barking out orders and Hooper...uhhh...being all scientific as my dad just took it all in. An observer at first until finally the situation dictated action. Of course, I imagined this, as a kid (just to be clear), all taking place on Lake Champlain, but still....it was a nice image. Anyway, what Scheider accomplished onscreen in his many roles was certainly no easy task. He got the audience to relate to him, to like him, to pull for him. He made it look effortless.

His work in John Badham's Blue Thunder is no different. Written by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby as a loose fitting update of George Orwell's "1984" and set in the far flung future of..um...1984....and released in 1983 so I guess that makes it a little bit ahead of it's time. The big brother theme is prevalent throughout this picture as the United States government has developed a helicopter designed for keeping tabs on the general populus. Blue Thunder comes fully loaded with turbine boosters, state of the art video and audio equipment, a thermograph, infrared night vision, and the ability to go into "whisper mode". Also, a pivoting machine gun on the nose that aims wherever the pilot turns (aims) his helmet. It's a wonderful design and, go figure, was actually built for this movie. No CGI. What?

The story follows a couple of L.A. (the city is never actually named, but come on) beat cops, officers Frank Murphy and Richard Lymangood (Scheider and Daniel Stern), whose beat isn't on the ground, but in the air. The picture begins with the partners patrolling an area of the city (in a regular chopper at this point) that happens to feature a nude aerobisizer who stretches in her highrise apartment, in the nude, every night at 10:30, like clockwork. She's really the perfect specimen as noted by Lymangood; "would you look at her tan? it's so....even." Unfortunately, they're called away from their peep show for what is announced as a "rape in progress" (I imagine that's the first time that's ever been used, I mean who the fuck would call that in...wouldn't you try to stop it?). The victim, a mayor's assistant working to curb urban warfare, is shot in the ensuing melee. She eventually succumbs to her injuries in the hospital. Was this just a random act of violence?

Into the mix comes Malcolm McDowell as U.S. Colonel Cochorane. Hilariously, he does nothing to hide his prissy British accent and thus comes across as easily hate-able. He's an old war "buddy" of Murphys (as we see in various 'Nam flashbacks) and, at one point, tried to have Murphy court martialed. Cochorane arrives to show off, and deliver for a test run, a new helicopter prototype known as blue thunder. There's a great scene where Cochorane tests the thing in front of a captive audience. A fake town is set up with red dummies (bad guys) and white dummies (good guys). Cochrone takes out the red guys with "near" precision and a government flunky feels the need to toot his own horn: "One civilian dead for every ten terrorists....that's an acceptable ratio." Sheider, without missing a beat: "Unless you're one of the civilians."

Originally, Blue Thunder was going to be a Taxi Driver-like story about a pilot driven insane and terrorizing the city from above. I would have loved that picture. Still, I dug this one. A whole hell of a lot. The aerial photography in this thing is flat out amazing. How often do you see actual dog fighting between helecopters? I suppose it could be done today but it would be all CG. I loved the stunt flying in this one. The camera movements. The fact that Blue Thunder uses a move that Tom Cruise used in Top Gun, that inverted G thing or whatever, and this movie came out a few years earlier. Of course, that move is likely impossible in a helecopter but who gives a shit?

Scheider, like I said, is good in this thing. It's not a showy role by any means (his roles rarely are) but he adds just enough humor and subtlety to keep us interested. It's a small thing, but I love the way he interacts with children. There's genuine love there (and no, I'm not referring to something inappropriate you sick bastards). His character in this is a bit unbalanced (some war wounds never heal) and I liked how he brought himself back to sanity using his stop watch. It was a nice touch. McDowell is a motherfucker. Hate, hate, hate the fuck. He prepares for a little game of "follow the leader" (with him in blue thunder and Scheider and Stern in a regular copter) by unscrewing what I'm sure is a pretty important screw on Scheider's bird and then calling in their subsequent crash as he's yawning: "chopper down (yawn) somewhere in the Watts area". I also wanted to punch him viciously in the nuts everytime he said "catch you later" while pointing his finger as if it were a gun. The performance I absolutely adored in this thing was Warran Oates as Captain Jack Braddock. Oates is slowly, but surely, becoming one of my favorite actors. The guy just flat out knows how to deliver a standard line and make it something great. Like, for instance, when he tells Stern "you're supposed to be stupid son. don't abuse the privilege." Sadly, this was his final performance but I think he can be proud of his work here. What a great voice he had.

I think the fact that I've barely touched on the plot is an indication of how good this picture is. Let's just say that a certain murder touched on earlier ties in with a certain British windbag and a certain blue thunder helicopter program. The movie has several tense moments including a prolonged aerial battle between blue thunder (piloted by Scheider) and a couple of horrendously inaccurate F-16s. Out of all the other helecopter movies/tv shows of the early 80s (including "Airwolf" and "blue thunder" the series) this is, by far, the tops.

We're winding down our 80s action month and a half or whatever. I've got a couple more reviews in the pipeline. Fuck, why have I been focusing on the good action shit? Haven't even touched on Schwarzenegger or Stallone yet (though I did watch Cobra but, while I liked it, I just couldn't motivate myself to write about it). I'm also planning on attempting some sort of "ten best" and "five worst" lists for 2008 but that's going to be a fucking chore. You know it's been a terrible year at the movies when the latest Bond film, Quantum of Soul-less or whatever, could possibly make both lists. Fuck, I can't wait for 2009.

The Osterman Weekend (1983)

The Osterman Weekend is an interesting picture nearly ruined by an incomprehensible screenplay. Sam Peckinpah's final gasp before years of drug and alcohol abuse would claim him less than a year later. I find it interesting that Peckinpah was trying to re-establish himself in the film community with this picture since he must have known the end was so close. This one feels more like a gun-for-hire job with the usual Peckinpah flourishes appearing all too infrequently. It's based on a Robert Ludlam novel by the same name and, according to most accounts, Peckinpah had no love for the source material. He simply wanted to make a picture that the masses would see so he could make some cash and get back to making pictures that interested him. And then he died.

So, his heart wasn't really in this thing but, regardless, it's still pretty damned enjoyable even if I couldn't understand what the hell was going on at times. The film opens with a grainy video of a couple making love. I became worried that the entire picture would be filmed this poorly as there was no immediate indication that what we were seeing was a video within a movie. The man (John Hurt) leaves (bare assed) to go to the bathroom and a couple of men walk in and murder the woman in typically covert fashion (as it turns out, she's his wife). Turns out the video is being watched by William Danforth (Burt Lancaster), the head of the CIA. He ordered the hit on Hurt's wife. Strangely, he doesn't even remember why. Ironically, despite the most high tech video surveillance equipment (I think they used beta!) at their disposal, the CIA is fucking blind and Danforth is another case of the blind leading the, um, blind. Hurt, CIA operative Lawrence Fassett, is called into Danforth's office where he reveals the existence of a group known as "Omega". Some sort of soviet spy network. He presents a plan that entails "turning" these spies instead of simply eliminating them. He is, apparently, unaware of Danforth's participation in his wife's murder. He believes "Omega" to be responsible.

I'll be honest here, I cheated a bit with that previous paragraph. Some of those plot details arrived courtesy of wikipedia. The rest will be all me. This is a fucking needlessly convoluted mess. If it wasn't for the performances and the action and the constant titties on screen I probably would have turned it off. Anyway, Rutger Hauer (yes, him again!) also stars as John Tanner, the host of a television show called "Face to Face" where he allows guests, usually of a political nature, to come on and be ambushed by his anything goes line of questioning. Once a year, Tanner hosts what have come to be known as "Ostermans" (named after college buddy Bernard Osterman) at his isolated country home. Bernard Osterman, a marvelous performance by Craig T. Nelson, is a film producer. Also in attendance will be plastic surgeon Richard Tremayne (Dennis Hopper) and dog hating doucher Joseph Cardone (Chris Sarandon). Also, their horny wives. Tanner is married to Meg Foster, her with the frighteningly strange pale eyes, and she's as hot as she'll ever be in this thing. Something about a broad with a bow and arrow. Tanner also has a young son and a dog.

So, basically Fassett and Danforth approach Tanner and convince him (with video evidence) that his three college buddies are spying for the soviets as part of "Omega". Tanner, while leaning far to the left, is stringently loyal to his country. The plan is for Fassett to rig Tanner's home with hidden cameras and spy on them for the weekend. Tanner, without much prodding relents, but on one condition: That Danforth will appear on his show. Meanwhile, Tanner's friends hold secret meetings where it's clear they are up to something. It's not made clear exactly what that something is. One thing is made clear. They're not sure they can trust their "friend" John Tanner. It's going to be an uncomfortable weekend.

So many questions, so few sensical answers. First, just what the fuck is "Omega"? I'm still not really sure. Second, what is Fassett's motive? That one I finally figured out but it took some heavy lifting. What I loved about the film were the performances. John Hurt is great as Fassett, a shadowy man who spends most of the film appearing on the TV. He's rigged up every television in Tanner's home to run on a closed circuit and at one point communicates with Tanner on the TV in the kitchen while his guests are enjoying drinks in the other room. The guests suddenly appear and Fassett atempt's to disconnect the feed are hilariously fruitless so he's forced to give the weather forecast as Tanner is engaged in conversation. If you actually listen to what he's saying (he repeats himself a few times) it's clear he's got no idea what he's doing. This is probably one of the better performances Craig T. Nelson has given. He's introduced in a funny scene where he is getting his ass handed to him by his sensei. The sensei turns off the lights to "even things a bit". The audience hears typical fight sounds and when the lights come on the sensei has been destroyed in a non-lethal, almost friendly, manner ("I feel like that was better").

You know a movie is doing something right (or, is it wrong) when Dennis Hopper gives the film's most muted performance. He barely registers here and is, often, dominated (in several ways) by the performance of Helen Shaver, as his drunken, coked up wife. Chris Sarandon is clearly the baddest seed of the group. Upset by losing a game of water polo he kicks Tanner's dog and then threatens his wife with a gun after the tension reaches it's breaking point. Lancaster is pretty good too though his role can barely be called a glorified cameo. Hauer is fine as well although he's in the obligatory everyman part. "Everyman" as in it could have been played by any man.

The building tension, the breasts (ass too), the performances all help to sell this thing even as the faltering story tries to return it. However, this is Peckinpah and even disinterested, drunk out of his mind he still knows how to give us the action. Typical Peckinpah the action scenes are shot in a slightly disorienting slow motion as if the gods themselves were watching the event's unfold with their hands on the remote control. Kind of like me when I get to the nudie parts these deities prefer to break down the action and see how it unfolds. They can see breasts anytime they want after all they created the damned things. The assault on Tanner's house by CIA agents (?) is a master stroke. Osterman (whose side is he on?) kills one agent with his bare hands and spends most of the rest of the movie slow-mo diving out of the way of gunfire. Why are the agents suddenly descending upon the house with orders like "terminate" and "eliminate"? Where did Sarandon, Hopper and their wives get that motor home (did I take a bathroom break here?) so they could try to make their getaway. Thankfully, the motor home is also rigged with video cameras (and explosives) so Tanner can watch while Fassett delivers the picture's best line: "Think of them as fleas on a dog hit by a car driven by a drunken teenager whose girlfriend just gave him the clap. It will put things into perspective."

Fassett may or may not be evil (likely just driven crazy by grief). Osterman may or may not be evil. I'm pretty sure Danforth is evil (head of CIA after all). Meg Foster looks evil but I'm pretty sure she's ok. Chris Sarandon is a son of a bitch but I'm not sure that makes him evil. Fuck, and Hopper seems like a decent enough guy who just happened to marry a rotten money grubbing bitch. The critics, at the time and probably still to this day, were harsh with this one. The studio butchered it. A director's cut was released in 1988 but not sure if it had the official Peckinpah stamp of approval since he'd been dead for four years. Anway, I was never bored and mostly entertained. Out of all the Peckinpah films that I've seen this is the worst and that's still a fucking ringing endorsement because the worst of Peckinpah is better that most of the bullshit that Hollywood shits out these days. Damn, I just wish I could have better described the plot or even understood what, and more importantly why, things were happening. Maybe I'll watch it in slow-mo next time.

Kickboxer (1989)

Here's a typical film scenario courtesy of "the muscles from Brussels": Man (JCVD) travels to foreign land (in this case, accompanying his kickboxing legend moustachioued douchebag brother) for martial arts tournament. Brother destroyed by local legend. Man swears vengeance, appears in way over his head. Man gets ass handed to him for most of the final fight. Man comes back from near death to win bout with a bunch of slow-mo, repeated blows while seemingly unbeatable foe suddenly forgets how to block punches or...um...fight altogether. Man doesn't get laid during film's runtime. Ok, I think I probably missed/added some things but you get the gist. This picture, Kickboxer, is run of the mill. It's also the gayest thing Van Damme's ever done.

The movie centers around a couple of brothers that are clearly pining for each other's balls. Eric Sloane (Dennis Alexio) is some kind of kickboxing champion. The picture opens with him kicking ass across, what can only be, minor circuits. The first thing that tipped me off to his gayness was the Gold's Gym muscle shirt. The second thing was the moustache. Still, he's a pretty solid fighter and this becomes more clear when we realize the guy manning his corner is Jean Claude Van Damme (playing Kurt Sloane). These guys have had it with their current, lack of, competition and so they pack their bags for Bangkok, Thailand to challenge the current Thai champion known as Tong Po. Before the fight we get a nice little montage of the two brothers touring the city, arm in arm, as a sweet little 80's ballad serenades us. Eric eventually retreats to the hotel with a couple of hookers as his brother sorta just shrugs off his closeted ways. Later, the fight takes place and Eric is paralyzed barely a round into the thing ("these guys use their elbows!"). Stubborn son of a bitch should have listened to his brother who ran into Tong Po earlier knocking down cement beams with his shins. Oh well, live and learn I guess.

Of course without the back breaking, we wouldn't really have a movie or, at least, not a very good one (we still don't). Kurt vows to avenge his brothers crippling (at least now when Eric can't get it up for chicks he'll have an excuse) and journeys to a more forested region of Thailand to train with "Muay Thai" legend, Xian Chow (Dennis Chan). Along the way, Kurt meets a girl, deals with some Thai mobsters, and of course has a training montage (a nifty way to keep movies from exceeding months in length). Suddenly he's better than his brother ever was (as if that's hard to believe). He's more than ready to face Tong Po. If only Kiki, Chow's dog, was as confident as Kurt was ("someday, Kiki will believe in me.").

This is one of those movies that starts off shitty but by the time Kurt and Tong Po are facing off with fists wrapped in cloth, dipped in resin and covered with glass, you are completely won over and then the movie keeps going and just becomes pretty shitty all over again. Nothing about this picture is believable. First of all, no way was Eric ever a better fighter than Kurt. No way would that girl show any interest in Kurt. And, for fuck's sake, are we really supposed to believe that Eric and Kurt are american brothers. In Kurt's defense he does claim they are originally from Belgium. Eric just took the better ESL program I guess.

The final battle is interesting. Thai mobsters capture Eric before the fight and let Kurt know that he has to suffer through every round or his brother will suffer a horrible death. So, it's up to Xian Chow and Winston Taylor (Vietnam vet living in Bangkok that befriends JCVD. I think he's working as a pimp.) to rescue the brother before Tong's punishment becomes too much for Kurt to endure. Tong is relentless. He's also a rapist apparently since he chastises Kurt after one particularly brutal round with the following line: "You bleed like Mylee (Kurt's girl, duh). Mylee....Goooooood fuck." Then he whipped his ponytail around and licked his lips. Tong Po, like the majority of Thai's portrayed in this movie, is pyschotic.

I won't spoil what happens but let's just say that once Kurt sees Eric sitting with the audience, as comfortably as one can be in a wheelchair, that Tong Po doesn't stand a chance. Oh wait, I just spoiled it! This was also the moment when I realized that I hate the way all Jean Claude Van Damme pictures end. So, clearly Tong Po was never a match for the guy. Kurt was near death, guts dripping out of his stomach, glass embedded in his skull, etc. We know he endured this for his brother. Still, wouldn't he be a bit out of sorts from things like blood loss, for instance? Ok, I get it, it's a fucking movie. Also, why doesn't Van Damme have the confidence in his abilities to cut most of his fights in real time? Why do we have to see him do that double punch, or that Jump kick, three times and in slow motion? It completely takes you out of the picture. I fucking can't stand the way his fights are cut. Suddenly, I realized what I was watching wasn't a fight, but masturbation.

Oh well, he can't win them all I guess. Bloodsport suffers from the same technical issues. It's still a much better film. Cyborg isn't bad even though it's directed by Albert Pyum. Jean Claude, I think, just lacked the scripts and charisma, albeit limited charisma, that make Steven Seagal pictures such a pleasure. Anyway, Kickboxer works on a simple level. It's not transcendent, or even good. It's pretty bad. Mostly, it just is.