88 MINUTES

2008

TriStar Pictures

Written by Gary Scott Thompson

Produced and Directed by Jon Avnet

            When movie fans get together and start discussing the most influential and greatest actors ever, there’s an excellent chance that Al Pacino will be in the top five if not right at the top.  And with good reason.  If Al Pacino had only performed in “The Godfather Trilogy” his place in movie history would be assured.  But he’s assembled a list of classic films that few actors today can match: “Serpico” “…And Justice For All” “Dog Day Afternoon” “Heat” “Scarface” “The Panic In Needle Park” “Dick Tracy” “Looking For Richard” “Carlito’s Way” “Glengarry Glen Ross”…hell, I even like “Bobby Deerfield” “Revolution” and “Author! Author!”  But lately Al Pacino hasn’t been hitting them outta the park the way he used to.  Oh, he played an okay bad guy in “Ocean’s Thirteen” but it was a performance that anybody could have done.  It didn’t have that magic we expect from Al Pacino.  And 88 MINUTES isn’t a movie that’s going to enhance Mr. Pacino’s reputation at all.  Even my wife Patricia who is an Al Pacino fan from way back in the day (we have epic arguments over who’s the better actor: Al Pacino or my boy Robert DeNiro) was highly disappointed with 88 MINUTES. 

            Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) is a popular Seattle college professor who also is a nationally renowned forensic psychologist who’s made a sizeable fortune from his work profiling serial killers for the FBI and various police departments around the country.  Gramm’s latest success was in convicting Jon Forster aka “The Seattle Slayer” (Neal McDonough).  Forster maintains that he’s innocent and when one of Gramm’s students turns up murdered in the exact same way as Forster’s alleged victims, there’s some doubt raised.  Gramm maintains that Forster has an accomplice on the outside who committed the murder.  FBI Special Agent Frank Parks (William Forsythe) isn’t so sure.  Y’see, Gramm’s DNA is all over the crime scene.  To complicate matters, Gramm gets a phone call telling him he only has 88 minutes to live.  Why 88 minutes?  Because 88 minutes is related to a specific case in Gramm’s past that has extraordinary personal significance for him.  Gramm must use his skills and training as a forensic psychologist to identify who the killer is before his 88 minutes run out.

            Sounds like thrilling stuff, huh?  Nothing could be further from the truth.  For a movie hyped as a suspense thriller, 88 MINUTES has no suspense and even fewer thrills.  The movie is being sold on Al Pacino’s performance and even that isn’t as dynamic or exciting as we’ve come to expect from him.  The movie throws far too many potential suspects at us.  Most of who are women.  Given that Gramm is supposed to be a rampant womanizer we shouldn’t be surprised when the identity of the killer is revealed.  Hell, half of the people in the audience Patricia and I saw it with accurately identified the killer an hour into the movie.

            I have to say that Al Pacino looks great in the movie.  And he tries his best to make the character and the movie work.  Perhaps his best scene in the movie is when he explains to another one of his students (Alicia Witt) what personal meaning 88 minutes has for him.  It’s a scene where we can see the Al Pacino we know and love at work.  Unfortunately you’ve got to sit through a whole chunk of pretty slow scenes in order to get to it.  Amy Brenneman is a standout as Pacino’s assistant and I would have liked to have seen more scenes between them.  Which leads into one or my major peeves with this movie: There are way too many scenes where the actors are talking to each other on cell phones instead of interacting on the screen together.  I haven’t seen cell phones used this much to convey information since the last season of “24”.  Neal McDonough is a fine actor but he’s not given much to do here.  I would have liked to have seen more scenes between William Forsythe and Al Pacino as I enjoyed them both when they were in “Dick Tracy”.  The Seattle locations are nice to look at as is Deborah Kara Unger and Leelee Sobieski. 

            So should you see 88 MINUTES?  I can’t recommend this movie even if you’re a diehard Al Pacino fan.  I wouldn’t even recommend waiting for the DVD and renting it.  The mystery at the heart of the story isn’t interesting or compelling and there’s never any feeling that the Pacino character is in any real danger.  The amount of suspects thrown at us is laughable and when the killer is finally revealed it isn’t surprising and the killer’s motives are laughable.  I’m hoping that Pacino’s next movie, “Righteous Kill” which will re-team him with Robert DeNiro will be a whole lot better.  But it wouldn’t have to do much to be better than 88 MINUTES.

108 minutes

Rated R for brief nudity, language and violence

BUCK AND THE PREACHER

Columbia Pictures

1972

Directed by Sidney Poitier

Produced by Joel Glickman and Harry Belafonte (uncredited)

Screenplay by Ernest Kinoy

Based on a story by Ernest Kinoy and Drake Walker

            When I was growing up there were few actors cooler than Sidney Poitier.  Here was a black man who personified everything that I myself wanted to be: smooth, intelligent, proud, articulate, charming, and witty.  I missed the mark on a lot of those aspirations but as a role model I couldn’t ask for better.  He distinguished himself as a major actor way back in the 50’s and 60’s and when his movies such as “To Sir, With Love” “A Raisin In The Sun” “In The Heat Of The Night” and “Lilies Of The Field” were shown on television in my house it was a major event.  My mom and dad plopped me and my sisters down in front of the set right alongside them to watch.  I know it’s kinda difficult for anybody under the age of 30 to understand why an actor such as Sidney Poitier was so important to black people back in the 60’s and 70’s because now we’ve got Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Avery Brooks, Wayne Brady, Don Cheadle, LeVar Burton and two dozen other notable black actors both male and female.  But once upon a time not so long ago, Sidney Poitier was all we had.  He was it.  He not only was at the top of the pyramid, he was the pyramid.

            BUCK AND THE PREACHER is notable for a couple of things that lifts it a couple of notches above your average western.  First off, it’s Sidney Poitier’s first directorial effort and it’s a damn good one.  It’s a western that addresses a major problem former slaves had after The Civil War: okay, we’re free but now what do we do with that freedom? And it’s got a wonderful comic performance by Harry Belafonte, previously best known for popularizing Caribbean calypso music in The United States.  Harry Belafonte had done a number of films previously: the classic “Carmen Jones” with the outrageously beautiful Dorothy Dandridge and 1957’s “Island In The Sun” which was considered a daring movie at the time due to the subject matter of interracial relationships.  But all of his previous movies had been dramas.  In BUCK AND THE PREACHER Harry Belafonte demonstrated a real gift for comedy that he would display again in a later film also directed by his good friend Sidney Poitier: 1974’s “Uptown Saturday Night”

            After The Civil War, wagon trains of former slaves are heading west, the promised forty acres and a mule never having been delivered.  But there’s plenty of unspoiled, unclaimed land far to the west and the former slaves are willing to make the hazardous journey.  Buck (Sidney Poitier) is a former Union soldier/scout who uses the skills he learned in the Army and the valuable alliances he has made with the Indians to take the wagon trains through.  It’s not an easy job.  The wagon trains are hunted down by “labor recruiters” who use any means necessary to turn the former slaves around and drive them back to the southern plantations.  And Buck has a price on his head, himself being relentlessly tracked down by bounty hunters Deshay (Cameron Mitchell) and his sadistic right hand man Floyd (Denny Miller) 

            It’s during one of his escapes from Deshay’s posse that Buck encounters The Reverend Willis Oakes Rutherford of The High And Low Order of The Holiness Persuasion Church (Harry Belafonte) a smooth talking wandering minister with bad teeth and a six shooter in his Bible.  Buck switches horses with The Preacher which leads to The Preacher almost getting killed by Deshay’s men.  It isn’t long before The Preacher catches up with Buck and he thinks he’s got an easy mark in the prospective settlers.  But a bloody nighttime raid affects The Preacher more than even he would have guessed and before you know it, both men have joined together to become outlaws in order to get back the money stolen from the former slaves and get them to their new home in the west, far from the harsh unhappy life they previously knew.

  BUCK AND THE PREACHER doesn’t beat you over the head with a history lesson but the motivations of the characters are different enough from your average western that it gives the material a fresher spin than you might be used to.  The plight of the former slaves is laid out with no punches pulled so there’s a clear understanding of what’s at stake.  And the performances by Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte sell the movie.  Poitier’s the grim stoic while Belafonte is the grinning trickster.  They make a great team.  Ruby Dee plays Ruth, Buck’s woman and she has a great scene where she lays it out for Buck as to what she wants out of life and she doesn’t want it in America.

There’s a nice subplot with Buck’s relationship with an Indian chief (Enrique Lucero) and his wife (Julie Robinson) who are sympathetic to the plight of the former slaves but not so sympathetic that they’ll risk the lives of their people.  Cameron Mitchell and Denny Miller (a former Tarzan and for years was ‘The Gorton Fisherman’) make a great pair of bad guys.  Cameron Mitchell has a nice little scene where he explains to a sheriff how slaves are a way of life in the south and without them, that life will soon be nonexistent.

            So should you see BUCK AND THE PREACHER?  I think you should.  It’s got a story that showcases a little known period in The Old West so there’s something extra for you.  But it’s also got some great shootouts including the final one where Buck and The Preacher make a last stand against a dozen opponents.  The performances are solid and Harry Belafonte is obviously having a great time with his character.  It’s got Sidney Poitier.  And it’s a western.  What more do you need?

Rated: PG

102 minutes

BLUES BROTHERS 2000

1998

Universal Pictures

Directed by John Landis

Produced by John Landis, Dan Aykroyd and Leslie Belzberg

Written by Dan Aykroyd and John Landis

“The Blues Brothers” is one of those movies that I wish to God I had written.  When I first saw it in a theatre during it’s original theatrical run I laughed so hard I nearly gave myself a hernia.  And the concluding car chase is a classic.  In fact, most of what happens in that movie is a classic.  I only wish that BLUES BROTHERS 2000 had been a worthy sequel to that movie.   There’s a whole lot in this movie I like but there’s a whole lot that’s wrong with it as well and the major thing is that there’s no John Belushi.  And The Blues Brothers without John Belushi is like…well; it’s like Krazy Kat without Ignazt Mouse.  It’s like Mr. Peabody without Sherman.  It’s like…well; you get the point by now.   BLUES BROTHERS 2000 would have been a worthy movie on it’s own if it didn’t have the shadow of John Belushi hanging over it.  It’s a movie with great music and great musical numbers but while I was watching it my mind couldn’t help thinking how much better it could have been if John Belushi had been in the movie.

Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) is released from prison and he naturally waits outside for his brother Joliet Jake to pick him up the Bluesmobile.  It fact, he waits two days and nights before the warden, (Frank Oz) finds out that nobody has told him that Jake is dead.  I admire the way they handle the scene where the warden breaks the news to Elwood.  It’s done in a really touching way and we never hear what the warden says but the body language says it all.  It’s a really nice way to acknowledge John Belushi’s contribution to The Blues Brothers and it’s done with sensitivity.  But a girl who works in a strip club where the drummer of their old band now owns picks up Elwood.  Elwood hooks up with him and is given a job there where he meets the wonderfully named Mighty Mack McTeer (John Goodman).  Mighty Mack proves that he can sing in a show stopping number (“I’m Lookin’ For A Fox”) and Elwood envisions putting the band back together.

After a bit of business where Elwood pisses off The Russian Mafia and they burn down the strip club, he sets off to reunite the band, accompanied by Mighty Mack and Buster, an orphan he has been assigned to mentor by Sister Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman).   The orphan quickly declares himself a Blues Brother and decides to live in the trunk of the new Bluesmobile and wears the black suit, hat and glasses required, as does Mighty Mack.  Elwood travels around the country, reuniting the old Blues Brothers Band and picking up yet another new Blues Brothers (Joe Morton) who plays Cab Chamberlain, the illegitimate son of the character Cab Calloway played in the previous film.  Elwood’s rational is that since Cab Calloway’s character was like a father to him and Jake that makes Cab their stepbrother.  The problem is that Cab Chamberlain is a high-ranking Chicago police officer.  One of the best scenes in the movie is when Elwood goes to ask Cab to join the band and Cab rattles off the $24 million dollars of property damage and numerous crimes The Blues Brothers committed when they performed their last concert.

Eventually Elwood reunites the band and Cab evens joins them in a scene that is a direct steal from the one in “The Blues Brothers” where they end up at a tent revival of the Reverend Cleophus James (James Brown) and Reverend Moore (Sam Moore) and Cab gets that The Blues Brothers are “On A Mission From God” and is transformed into a Blues Brother.  They then go onto to Louisiana where they have to compete in an All-Star Battle Of The Bands.  Now, The Blues Brothers are a kick ass band on their own, but let’s face it, when they get to Ereykah Badu’s voodoo temple located deep in the backwater swamps of Louisiana, they’re definitely outclassed by the band they meet which is comprised of…and hold your breath…B.B. King, Gary U.S. Bonds, Eric Clapton, Clarence Clemons, Bo Diddly, Isaac Hayes, Dr. John, Billy Preston, Lou Rawls, KoKo Taylor, Travis Tritt, Grover Washington Jr. and Steve Winwood.

However, it all works out in the end and the movie ends in a satisfying manner with everybody having a good time and even though The Russian Mafia, The Catholic Church and The Detroit Police Department end up chasing the new team of The Blues Brothers comprised of Elwood, Buster, Mack and Cab, it’s all good.

I didn’t spend too much time on the plot of BLUES BROTHERS 2000 because there really isn’t a plot.  I get the feeling that John Landis and Dan Aykroyd did the movie because they were contracted to do a sequel and yeah, maybe they just wanted to do one.  And I can see why.  The movie isn’t one that should be seen for a plot or a story.  But we do get some really terrific musical numbers that easily match and in my opinion, surpass the ones of the first movie.

You can skip Aretha Franklin doing yet another version of ‘Respect’ that was done better in the first movie but some of the other numbers are outstanding.  Blues Traveler is in this movie and they do a terrific song.  The version of ‘634-5789’ done by The Blues Brothers, Wilson Pickett and Johnny Lang is an absolute showstopper.  In fact, every musical number in BLUES BROTHERS 2000 is a showstopper.  That’s how good a musical it is.  John Landis knows how to direct a musical and he shows it here.  BLUES BROTHERS 2000 is worth seeing just for the musical numbers as they all make you wanna get up and dance.  Especially the last twenty minutes of the movie which is nothing but wall-to-wall music.  And whatever you do, do not turn off the movie after the closing credits.  Why?  Because you’ve got another seven or eight minutes of James Brown doing his classic “Please, Please, Don’t Go” with John Goodman and Dan Ackroyd backing him up.  I grew up seeing The “Please, Please Don’t Go,” number.  This is the one where somebody will put a cape over James Brown and lead him off the stage.  He would go the end of the end of the stage, scream, throw the cape off and go back into the number.  In this movie, John Goodman does cape duty and he does it so well that you just know he used to watch the routine just as I did.

So should you see BLUES BROTHERS 2000?  Watch it not for the story but for the extraordinary musical performances.  As I’ve said earlier, John Landis knows how to direct musical sequences.  And I love all of ‘em in this movie.  The story is minor.  The music is major.  I don’t say this about many movies, but watch BLUES BROTHERS 2000 just for the music and the music performances.  Everybody is obviously having a helluva time making this movie and they can all sing.

Rated PG-13

123 minutes

BAMBOOZLED

2000

New Line Cinema

Written and Directed by Spike Lee

Produced by Kisha Imani Cameron, Jon Kilik and Spike Lee

            The last credit we see at the end of BAMBOOZLED is a dedication to Budd Schulberg.  It’s a dedication that I found most appropriate because Budd Schulberg wrote the screenplay for “A Face In the Crowd”.  A movie I’ve seen maybe eight or nine times and I still see new things in it every time I see it.  There’s a lot of “A Face In The Crowd” as well as “Network” in BAMBOOZLED.  All three movies should be watched together as thematically they’re the most scathing of indictments on the dangers of television ever committed to film.  They’re all satires, they’re all comedies, they’re all dramas and they’re all true tragedies as well.  Especially BAMBOOZLED in that the situation created by corporate and personal greed as well as the maniacal hunt for ‘The Next Big Thing’ and higher ratings lead to a truly frightening bloodbath that always leaves me stunned when I get to the end of this powerful movie.

            Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) is in a whole lot of trouble.  His job at the Continental Broadcasting System is in serious jeopardy.  The network is in last place and Pierre’s boss, Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rappaport) insists that Pierre come up with a television show that will appeal primarily to African-Americans.  Dunwitty is an idiot who thinks that because he’s married to a black woman that gives him the right to use the word ‘nigger’ freely.  He has pictures of black athletes on the walls of his office and claims he understands black people more than the uptight, Harvard educated Pierre.  Pierre conspires with his assistant Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett Smith) to create a show that is so overwhelmingly racist and offensive that Dunwitty will have no choice but to fire Pierre who can then go to another network.  He hires two talented street performers, tap dancer Manray (Savior Glover)  and the comic Womack (Tommy Davidson)  to star in a show called “The New Millennium Minstrel Show”  The show is to be   set in a watermelon patch on a Southern plantation and all the performers will appear in blackface.  Womack is horrified, but Manray, eager to make the big time at last agrees to star in the show.  Womack reluctantly goes along, not willing to leave his partner.  And he hopes that maybe he can make some changes by being on the inside.

            Now here’s where things get interesting: Dunwitty actually loves the show and puts in on the air where it becomes a mega hit and a cultural phenomenon.  So much to the point that the multi-racial studio audiences begin showing up wearing blackface themselves and proudly proclaiming themselves to be ‘niggers’.  Sloan and Womack are disgusted and horrified by the show’s popularity but Pierre and Manray embrace their success wholeheartedly, even though prominent African-Americans such as Al Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran denounce the show.  The situation is complicated by Sloan’s brother Big Blak Afrika (Mos Def) and his politically oriented rap group, The Mau Maus who hatch a plan to kidnap Manray and execute him publicly on a live Internet web cast.

            BAMBOOZLED isn’t going to appeal to a lot of people.  I’ll be honest here: Spike Lee isn’t exactly the most subtle of filmmakers when it comes to making his point.  The images of blackfaced actors shuckin’ & jivin’ in a watermelon patch to the music of a group called The Alabama Porch Monkeys (played by The Roots) is one that a lot of people won’t want to see.  And I can understand that.  BAMBOOZLED is a hard movie for me to watch and I have a tremendous amount of liking and respect for the film.  So I can imagine the impact it’ll have on people who don’t like Spike Lee or this kind of material.  But I watch some of the so-called ‘comedies’ featuring black actors on UPN and I realize that “The New Millennium Minstrel Show” really isn’t that far from what they air.  We get the message but Spike Lee really goes out of his way to make sure that we get it.

            The visual style of the movie goes a long way to selling the story to me.  Spike Lee shot the movie using digital camcorders that you or I could go into any electronics store and buy.  This method gives the movie a documentary-like feel that I liked.  What else did I like?  Jada Pinkett Smith has never really impressed me all that much as an actress outside of her roles in “Low Down Dirty Shame” and “Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight” but here she plays a wonderfully detailed character who is truly horrified by the situation she finds herself in.  I remember Tommy Davidson from the old “In Living Color” TV show where he always struck me as one of the most consistently talented performers.  He doesn’t seem to get a lot of work and I don’t understand why.  Here he shows a definite talent for drama.  As does Savior Glover.  Sure, we know he can dance good enough to make angels weep but he also can act.  I ended up not liking his character and think that he deserves his eventual fate but I sympathized with him and understand why he made the choices he did.  Damon Wayans makes some odd choices in his playing Pierre Delacroix, including using a really odd, nasal way of speaking and an unusual way of using his hands while talking.  But I appreciated seeing him do something different.  I’ve always liked Damon Wayans and his easy going manner of acting in comedies.  I’d like to see him in more dramas.  And any movie that has Paul Mooney in it automatically gets my attention.  Paul Mooney is probably the funniest man who has ever lived.  This cat wrote for both Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle and if I have to tell you any more than that then you just don’t get it.  And I really liked Mos Def in this one as well.  If you’ve ever seen “Something The Lord Made” then you know that Mos Def really can act.  That was made in 2004 but even in this 2000 movie you can tell he’s got the chops.  He and Jada Pinkett Smith have a wonderful scene where they discuss how black people are portrayed in movies and television that is so compelling you feel like you’re eavesdropping on an actual conversation.  Michael Rappaport does an excellent job of playing a character that is totally unlikable but yet, you can’t wait for him to show up on screen to see what he’ll do next.

            So should you see BAMBOOZLED?  Well, I certainly think you should if you’re in the mood for a Sunday afternoon of heavy social satire.  Rent BAMBOOZLED, “A Face In The Crowd” and “Network” and watch ‘em all.  BAMBOOZLED is not light entertainment at all.  In a lot of ways it’s a highly offensive movie where negative images of African-Americans fill the screen and shove themselves into your face.  And if you’re sensitive about the use of the n-word then you should stay away because it’s used often here.  But I recommend BAMBOOZLED if for no other reason than Spike Lee dared to explore how African-Americans are used and exploited by television and did it in such a thought-provoking manner.  You may love it or hate it but BAMBOOZLED, like “A Face In The Crowd” and “Network” will make you think about what you watch on television and why you watch it.

Rated: R

Be advised that there is no nudity in the movie and no violence until the last fifteen or twenty minutes but the language throughout is mighty raw.  And the n-word is used enough to make even Quentin Tarantino blush.  So if you’ve got sensitive ears, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

135 minutes

BE COOL

2005

MGM

Produced by Danny DeVito, David Nicksay, Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher

Directed by F. Gary Gray

Screenplay by Peter Steinfeld

Based on the novel by Elmore Leonard

            Probably the best way to watch BE COOL is to realize right off the bat that is a movie that knows it’s a movie.  It’s no more than an exercise for the actors to have fun and for us to sit back and just watch the actors having fun.  That’s all it is.  We’re watching a bunch of highly talented folks hanging out and being filmed hanging out.  They get to do familiar riffs on the conventions of the crime genre and they make no secret of the fact that they’re doing so.  Nobody is straining to win an Academy Award or even to blow us away with they’re acting ability.  BE COOL is the type of movie that you don’t absolutely have to see.  It won’t change or life and nobody will yank at your arm and yell in your ear; “Did you see BE COOL?” But while you’re watching it you’re entertained and you don’t feel you’ve wasted your time.  Or even if you do end up feeling like you wasted your time you might not even mind so much.  That’s because the movie lives up to it’s title.  It’s more about being cool than anything else.

            The hint comes right at the beginning of the movie where former Miami loan shark turned movie producer Chili Palmer (John Travolta) is driving around Hollywood in his Mercedes with music promoter/producer Tommy Athens (James Woods) and Chili is complaining about the restrictions of the MPAA.  Tommy asks for an example and Chili tells him that in order for a movie to get an R rating the f-word has to be used more than one time.  Chili promptly says: “F-that” and the word is never heard again in BE COOL, ensuring it’s PG-13 rating.

            Chili Palmer was introduced in 1995’s “Get Shorty” which was a wonderfully hilarious crime story in which Chili Palmer discovered that his loan sharking tactics were superbly suited to Hollywood and he quickly became a wildly successful movie producer.  But it’s ten years later and Chili is bored and he’s looking for a new challenge.  The challenge comes when Tommy gets whacked by Russian mobsters and Chili, who is owed money by Tommy decides to take over Tommy’s nearly bankrupt recording label and get into the music business.  He teams up with Tommy’s widow, Edie (Uma Thurman) and together they direct the career of Linda Moon (Christina Milan) a gorgeous singer with pipes that can knock Beyonce out of the ballpark.  Chili thinks she can be a star.  And he proceeds to use his considerable coolness, charm and downright dangerous skills he learned as a professional criminal to ensure that she does so.

            Of course, there are obstacles to this.  Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel) is a rival producer who holds Linda’s contract.  Nick’s partner is Raji (Vince Vaughn) a Jewish guy who thinks he’s black but unfortunately his knowledge of black culture comes from a bizarre mix of watching blaxplotation movie from the 70’s and listening to contemporary hip hop.  Raji’s bodyguard/sidekick is Eliot (Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock) an aspiring gay singer/actor who resents Raji for holding him back from his career.  Raji and Eliot hire a professional hitman (Robert Pastorelli) to whack Chili but instead bump off a Russian hitman who is after Chili since Chili is the only witness to Tommy’s murder.  Complicating the situation is hip hop/rap mogul Sin LaSalle (Cedric The Entertainer) who is the genius writer/producer behind a rap group called Weapons of Mass Destruction who look more like the defensive line of a football team than rap artists.  Tommy owed Sin LaSalle a whole lotta money and since Chili has taken over Tommy’s company he also has taken over his debts and Sin gives Chili one week to make good on the note.  It doesn’t help the situation that Tommy’s company is bankrupt and so Chili has a further motivation to see that Linda becomes a star.  The whole thing hinges on Edie’s former relationship with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler (playing himself) and trying to get Tyler to let Linda sing a duet with him at an Aerosmith concert.  If Chili and Edie can pull that off, they can pay Sin back.  Of course, that still leaves the problem of what to do about those pesky Russians and Nick Carr…

            The plot really doesn’t matter in BE COOL.  You have absolutely no doubt that Chili Palmer is going to pull off making Linda Moon a star, get the Russians and Nick Carr off his back and pay Sin LaSalle back his money.  The fun is watching how he does it and the way in which Chili is always three steps ahead of everybody else in the movie.  Chili has an uncanny way of zeroing in on what people want and finding their weakness and exploiting it.  But that’s the whole point.  Everybody else in the movie think they’re so hard and cold and ruthless but they’re just posers.  Chili actually IS hard and cold and ruthless.  He’s been a professional criminal for most of his adult life and these folks are just pretending they are.

            There’s a lot to like about BE COOL.  First off is John Travolta.  My admiration for this man is boundless.  He has developed into one the best actors in America today.  Watching him work on screen is an absolute pleasure.  He’s just so much fun to watch that I can’t see how anybody wouldn’t watch BE COOL and just enjoy seeing him do his thing.  The Wife likes to say about him that she doesn’t care what anybody says: there’s a black man inside of him trying to get out.  I tell her that Being Cool is a state of being that transcends race, age, sex or classification.  And John Travolta has that.  He’s Cool personified.  The same way that Steve McQueen, Pam Grier, James Coburn, Uma Thurman, Myrna Loy, Sean Connery, William Powell, Chow Yun Fat, Illeana Douglas, Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis and Robert Mitchum are Cool.  I really like the scenes where Chili Palmer interacts with two police detectives played by Debi Mazar and Gregory Alan Williams.  They know that Chili was a criminal but they treat him as if they would any other professional in his field.  They actually manage to work together to bring down the Russian gangsters in a way that is one of the most surprising plot twists in the movie.

            Vince Vaughn also qualifies as Cool.  He’s another actor that can do no wrong in my eyes and he’s hilarious in this movie.  I’ve had people ask me if I though that his performance in this movie is offensive and I don’t see how.  First off, it’s a “movie” and he’s an actor playing a role.  And second, I’ve actually known people like the one he plays is this movie.  But he actually gives his character some darker shadings that lift it out of being a caricature and makes Raji interesting and Vaughn has most of the good scenes and funniest lines. 

            The Rock as the gay bodyguard Eliot is a total standout.  There’s a scene where he shows Chili his video of him singing a country/western version of “You Ain’t Woman Enough To Take My Man” that is fall down hilarious and then he tops that with doing a monologue scene from the movie “Bring It On” where he plays not one, but two female parts that leads Chili to ask: “You do know that a monologue means only one person, don’t you?”  Christina Milan is extremely sweet as Linda Moon.  She has a nice chemistry with John Travolta and she looks absolutely gorgeous in this movie, especially in the big production number she has near the end where she performs at The Grammy Awards.

            What else?  Well, Harvey Keitel is dependable as always and it’s always fun to see him on screen, especially when he plays a role where he obviously is his having some fun with his typical movie persona.  Cedric The Entertainer also has a lot of fun with his rap impresario role.  His character makes a big show of “keeping it real” and “being from da hood” but he lives in an all-white suburb and sends his daughter to an elite private school.  He shows up for business meetings wearing an oversized basketball jersey over his Armani suits.  He has a great scene where a Russian gangster tells him to “Be Cool, nigger” and he explains exactly why black people have contributed to the concept of “Cool” to world culture before he shoots the man dead.  Andre Benjamin of the group Outkast has a role as Cedric’s sidekick that is small but he makes the most of it as his major beef is that he never gets to shoot anybody.  And I can’t let this review go by without mentioning that yes, Uma Thurman and John Travolta have a great scene where they dance in a club where The Black Eyed Peas are performing.  There’s no other reason for the scene to be there other than we remember how great they danced together in “Pulp Fiction” but what the hell.  They obviously have a terrific time dancing together and we enjoy them enjoying it.

            So should you see BE COOL?  No, It’s not as good as “Get Shorty” but it is a fun movie to watch.  The performances are good and the plot twists will keep you guessing.  It’s got a standout cast and if you’re a fan of John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Harvey Keitel (all “Pulp Fiction” actors) you’ll like seeing them here.  The Rock, Vince Vaughn, Cedric The Entertainer and Christina Milan are all solid supporting players and the cameos by James Woods, Danny DeVito, Anna Nicole Smith, The Black Eyed Peas and Steven Tyler are fun to watch.   You could do a lot worse than renting BE COOL on a Friday or Saturday night.  Just don’t ask a lot from the freewheeling plot and just sit back to watch a whole lotta coolness at work.  Enjoy.

118 minutes

Rated PG-13

AMERICAN GANGSTER

2007

Universal Pictures

Directed by Ridley Scott

Produced by Brain Grazer and Ridley Scott

Screenplay by Steve Zaillian

Based on the article “The Return of Superfly” by Mark Jacobson

            This isn’t the first time that Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe have squared off against each other in a movie.  Anybody remember the 1995 sci-fi thriller “Virtuosity”?  In that one, Denzel Washington was the cop and Russell Crowe was the bad guy, a virtual reality serial killer unleashed on the real world.  In the years between “Virtuosity” and AMERICAN GANGSTER both actors have made an impressive amount of really fine films and they’ve both won Best Actor Oscars.  Both men have achieved a level of respect and professional achievement that few actors today can claim.  And separately just their names are enough to guarantee a big weekend box office.  So putting them together again in a movie should assure us of some really outstanding scenes between the two of them since both men have done nothing but get better at their craft since 1995, right?

            I wish I could say it was so but AMERICAN GANGSTER is a lot like the Robert DeNiro/Al Pacino crime thriller “Heat” or Robert DeNiro/Kevin Costner in “The Untouchables” in that for most of the movie we’re following two separate but intertwined storylines and we have to wait about two hours before we get to what we want to see: the two main actors going at it.  It’s worth the wait to finally see Denzel and Russell face to face, trust me on that but the few scenes they have together are so good you can’t help but wish they had more of them.

            It’s the 1970’s and Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) has inherited the crime empire of his boss, the legendary Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson who has passed away from an unexpected heart attack.  Frank doesn’t waste time in consolidating his power.  To do this he intends to control the heroin traffic in Harlem by cutting out any and all middlemen and making a deal directly with the supplier.  Frank himself flies to Bangkok and with the help of his cousin Nate (Roger Guenveur Smith) a serviceman stationed in Vietnam he strikes a deal for a previously unheard of amount of heroin that is 100% pure.  He gives it a brand name: ‘Blue Magic’ and sells his product for half the price of his competitors.  Frank brings up his family from North Carolina, including his elderly mother (Ruby Dee) and buys a huge mansion estate for them all to live in.  He makes his five brothers his lieutenants and they proceed to make money.  A whole lot of money.

            Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe) isn’t having as much fun in his life as Frank is in his.  Ritchie’s wife is divorcing him because of his constant womanizing and his single-minded devotion to his job.  Ritchie is such an honest cop that he turns in a million bucks without batting an eye.  It’s simple for him because he looks at it simply: the money was made illegally.  He’s a cop.  Cops don’t take illegal money.  Haw.  Back in the 70’s police corruption in New York was just part of the job.  Ritchie is ostracized by his fellow officers and so he jumps at the chance when his boss (Ted Levine) gives him a chance to head up his own squad of Untouchables who will target the high-level drug dealers.  No nickel-and-dime dealers.  Ritchie’s investigations eventually lead him to Frank Lucas who has managed to stay under the radar for so long because he doesn’t go in for the flashy pimped out lifestyle of his peers like Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) Not Frank.  He dresses in conservative business suits and takes his momma to church every Sunday.  He doesn’t get high off his own supply and he runs his organization with a professionalism that makes him the gangland equivalent of Donald Trump. 

            Frank intrigues Ritchie who is amazed that a black man could amass so much wealth and power that even old school Mafia kingpins like Dominic Gattano (Armand Assante) give him respect and he’s determined to take Frank down.  It’s not going to be an easy job as Ritchie has no idea how Frank is smuggling his product into the United States and there’s a crooked cop (Josh Brolin) who is making life hell for both Frank and Ritchie.  The lives of these two men intersect at a very critical juncture in their lives and once they join together their story has a unique twist.

            AMERICAN GANGSTER works extremely hard at wanting to be an epic crime drama.  But I actually think it works more as a character study of the two men, Frank Lucas and Ritchie Roberts.  Frank Lucas is a cold-blooded killer who can set a man on fire without blinking and sell heroin to his own people without losing a night’s sleep.  But he also provides for his family, instills a (twisted) set of business values and ethics in his brothers and faithfully attends church every Sunday.  Ritchie Roberts is a helluva cop who chases bad guys by day and goes to law school at night.  He’s also a neglectful father and a lousy husband.  Family values is an elusive concept for Ritchie who seems genuinely puzzled that his wife doesn’t accept his womanizing and off-hour association with the lowlife of New York City.  I think that director Ridley Scott spends so much time on the separate stories of these two men, both of who are looking for The American Dream in their own way and allows us to examine their moral values and ethical codes and he wants us to make up our minds as to what we think of how they achieve it.

            Ridley Scott is a strange choice for this type of straight-up crime thriller.  I think perhaps the closest he’s come to a movie like this is 1989’s “Black Rain” starring Michael Douglas.  Ridley Scott is not the first director you think of when it comes to crime thrillers.  In the hands of Martin Scorsese or Carl Franklin I think the movie would have had more bite to it.  As it is Scott focuses more on how these two men conduct their business and their relationships to those around them.  As a result you’re not going to find over-the-top violence such as in “Scarface” “Goodfellas” or “The Departed”.  There is violence, sure.  But it’s handled in an almost documentary like manner.

            Denzel Washington turns in his usual outstanding performance as Frank Lucas.  By now we’re all so used to Denzel being so good that it’s no surprise that we’re not able to take our eyes off him when he’s on the screen.  He’s getting really good at playing bad guys.  And Russell Crowe is easily his equal in acting ability.  Separately they create fully realized characters and both men do more in a scene by saying nothing than other actors do with ten minutes of dialog.  They’re just that good.  And they’re backed up by an equally impressive supporting cast.  Ruby Dee has a really splendid scene where she has to talk Frank down from doing something really stupid and the honesty of the scene comes right out of the screen and grabs you by the shoulders.  Josh Brolin as Detective Trupo steps up his game considerably.  He has scenes with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe and damn if he doesn’t hold his own with the both of them.  It’s an impressive acting job he does here.  Chiwetel Ejiofor and Common have roles as two of Frank’s brothers.  Cuba Gooding, Jr. continues his streak as the most puzzling actor of the decade.  Why does this man continue to waste his talent in unfunny so-called comedies when he has such a gift for dramatic roles?  His five minutes as Nicky Barnes in AMERICAN GANGSTER beats out the entirety of “Boat Trip” “Rat Race” and “Snow Dogs” all put together.

            I was puzzled by Joe Morton’s character of Charlie Williams who in appearance is a near dead ringer for Gordon Parks.  His character’s relationship to Frank Lucas is never really explained.  He shows up every now and then, gives Frank some sage words of wisdom and then he’s gone.  And while we’re on the subject the relationship between Frank Lucas and his wife Eva (Lymari Nadal) isn’t all that satisfying either.  Despite the scene where Frank goes ballistic on Dominic Gattano when a hit on Frank goes wrong and his wife is almost killed I wasn’t convinced that either of them were ever that much in love with the other.

            So should you see AMERICAN GANGSTER?  If you’re a fan of Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe then you probably already have.  And with good reason.  Both men are at the top of their game right now and watching them work is truly a movie going pleasure.  The supporting cast does their job and backs up the leads superbly.  The direction is realistic and not bombastic.  And no, I don’t think that AMERICAN GANGSTER is the great crime epic it aspires to be but it is solid entertainment that’s worth your money and your time.

157 minutes

Rated R

A BOY AND HIS DOG

1975

LQ/JAF

Written and Directed by L.Q. Jones

Produced by Alvy Moore

Based on the novella by Harlan Ellison

            Science Fiction movies made today may be a lot of flash and spectacle, stuffed full of plastic characters with shallow motivations and even shallower personalities, backed up by a ton of CGI effects but give ‘em this: at least they’re optimistic.  Science Fiction movies of the 50’s/60’s and 70’s were dour, apocalyptic, doom-laden eulogies predicting The Downfall of Mankind.  More often than not these movies predicted the end of the world through Man’s Own Fault.  Nuclear holocausts was practically a given.  If you watch a movie made during that period you get the distinct impression that nobody thought we’d make it out of the 20^th Century.  A BOY AND HIS DOG is a good example of what I’m talking about.  It’s a post-apocalyptic Science Fiction action/adventure with just enough social satire thrown in to give you a chuckle, set in one of the most depressing future worlds you can think of and the ending takes black comedy to a new level. 

            In the year 2024 Earth has not only seen World War III but World War IV as well and America is a burned out, burned up wasteland.  There’s no civilization to speak of unless you want to try your luck in one of the near mythical underground cities of Downunder.  But above ground Vic (Don Johnson) and his telepathic dog Blood (played by Tiger/voice by Tim McIntire) like it just fine.  They enjoy pitting their wits against roving bands of marauders and scavengers, stealing food from them when they can and hunting up women for Vic to rape.  One of these women Blood hunts up is Quilla June (Susanne Benton) who lives Downunder in a city called ‘Topeka’ but sneaks up to the surface from time to time for a little sexual excitement with the savages.  Blood telepathically sniffs her out and Vic captures her.  But he doesn’t have long to enjoy his prize before he and Blood are forced to defend her against a band of scavengers in a savage battle that leaves Blood badly hurt.

            Quilla June escapes Vic and goes back Downunder.  Vic is determined to follow her and leaves Blood on the surface while he makes his way Downunder.  It’s not what he thinks.  Under the guidance of The Committee and Mr. Craddock (Jason Robards) Topeka is like Norman Rockwell on crystal meth.   There’s marching bands 24/7, parades, dances, hoedowns and everybody has their faces disturbingly painted like circus clowns.  Vic is scrubbed down and cleaned up and informed that Quilla June deliberately lured him to Topeka to help with their…population problem.  It’s a problem Vic is happy to help them with until he finds out he’s not going to be able to do it the old fashioned way.  Quilla June and some of the young members of Topeka want to enlist Vic’s help to overthrow The Committee and Mr. Craddock so they can establish a New World Order.  The revolution doesn’t go as Quilla June planned and both she and Vic are forced to return to the surface where Vic and Blood are reunited and that leads into the resolution of the relationship between Vic, Blood and Quilla June.  And what a resolution it is.  One that drives home the title of the movie in more ways than one.

            A BOY AND HIS DOG probably won’t have much to offer most of today’s CGI happy movie going crowd but then again, it’s not that type of movie.  It was made during a time when a Science Fiction Movie didn’t mean Big Explosions, $100 million dollar budgets, Big Stars and CGI effects every 30 seconds.  A BOY AND HIS DOG relies on the characters and the story to engage viewers.  It’s a film that has acquired Cult Movie status over the years and I think it earned that status honestly.  You’re going to be amazed at how young Don Johnson looks in this one.  He made this movie about 10 years before “Miami Vice” and even in this early work of his you can see flashes and hints of what made him a star later on.  Considering that most of his emotional scenes are with a dog, Don Johnson does a pretty good job.  A lot of their dialog is done with him speaking and Blood ‘speaking’ back telepathically and between the two of them they convinced me that they actually had a psychic rapport.

            Blood is played by Tiger, whose major role everybody remembers him in is playing the family dog of “The Brady Bunch”.  But here he actually gets a chance to act and I don’t say that lightly.  A lot of the movie hangs on how Blood reacts to Vic and to give Tiger his credit; he’s just as much of an actor as Don Johnson.  There are a lot of great scenes between them where the dog actually looks as if he’s really ‘talking’ telepathically to Johnson and having a psychic conversation with him.  And Johnson adds to the realism because he treats Tiger just as he would any other actor.  It’s really some nice acting here.  Not great.  But just enough to get across the reality of the situation.  Jason Robards really doesn’t have much to do in this movie and during my research for this review I found out that he really just did the movie as a favor to the director, L.Q. Jones.

            Speaking of L.Q. Jones, he’s much better known as an actor.  He’s been in a ton of westerns including two of my favorites: “The Wild Bunch” and “Lone Wolf McQuade” (yes, “Lone Wolf McQuade” is a western) but he occasionally directed movies and TV shows with A BOY AND HIS DOG as his best known directorial effort.  And with good reason.  It’s a really good movie.  Low budget, high enthusiasm, minimum SFX, high concept.  The performances are good and there’s a down-and-dirty realism that you just don’t see in Science Fiction movies today.  A BOY AND HIS DOG is worth a rental at least.  I have it in my DVD library but I realize that it may not be to everybody’s taste but I think you ought to at least give it a viewing.

            One thing I think I should advise you of, though: In our (shudder) PC obsessed society, the character of Vic may not be to everybody’s liking as no punches are pulled as he’s portrayed as a rapist and a killer.  And then there’s that ending.  So if you think you would be offended watching a movie with such a character as the lead, by all means pass this one by. 

91 Minutes

Rated: R

3:10 TO YUMA

2007

Lionsgate Films

Directed by James Mangold

Produced by Cathy Konrad

Screenplay by Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt and Derek Haas

Based on the short story by Elmore Leonard

            Those of you who know me from past movie reviews I’ve written (Warning: cheap huckstering ahead!) which you can find collected in “Derrick Ferguson’s Movie Review Notebook” available through Lulu.com know that my favorite genre of movie is The Western.  I love movies, period and I am the type of movie nut that will literally watch anything.  Yes, even chick flicks.  But Westerns…man, that’s my huckleberry right there.  Give me a Saturday afternoon, two or three good Westerns to watch along with some cheeseburgers, potato chips and plenty of Coca-Cola and leave me alone.  That’s why it was just such an orgasm for me to go see 3:10 TO YUMA.  It’s been so long since I’ve been able to go to a movie theater and see a Western on a big screen that I couldn’t even remember the last time I saw a Western in a theater.  I want to say “Silverado” but it couldn’t have been that long ago.  In any case, just the idea of going to the movies to see a Western was good enough for me and thankfully 3:10 TO YUMA turned out to be a terrific movie.  It’s not one of these “Revisionist” Westerns or a Western where the director is really trying to tell an allegory about Our Modern Times.  It’s a horse opera, plain and simple.  Told extremely well with outstanding performances by Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.

            Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a struggling Arizona farmer desperately trying to hold onto his land.  He’s lost a lot already.  Part of his leg was taken from him in The Civil War and he no longer has the respect of his oldest son William (Logan Lerman) or his wife Alice (Gretchen Mol).  Dan is determined to hold onto his farm even though his water has been dammed up and his barn burned down by the local land baron.  His chance to hold onto his land comes when the outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) is captured in the nearby town of Bisbee.  Ben Wade and his gang have robbed the Southern Pacific Railroad 20 times and their representative Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) offers $200 dollars to any man who will help him take Wade to a town two days ride away where a prison train will take Wade to Yuma.  Dan is eager to sign up along with Doc Potter (Alan Tudyk) the sheriff’s deputy (Kevin Durand) and bounty hunter Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda) who was the only survivor of Wade’s most recent robbery and would rather just put a bullet in his brain rather than see him hang.

            The journey is not going to be an easy one.  Dan and the others are pursued by Wade’s gang, led by the terrifyingly dangerous Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) Wade’s right-hand man who seems to take it as a personal insult that Dan and the other have even dared to presume to think they’re going to take Wade in to hang.  And then Dan and the others have to take a detour through country infested with bloodthirsty Apache renegades.  To make Dan’s situation even worse, his son William has taken it into his head to come along against Dan’s wishes as the 14 year old boy is plainly infatuated with Ben Wade’s legend. 

            There are a lot of things that makes 3:10 TO YUMA work for me but I’ll give you the main three: One is the story.  It’s a simple story, sure.  But in Westerns it’s the simple stories that work the best.  The motivations of the characters is the grease that makes the engine of the story run smoothly and everybody in this movie has a good reason for where they are and why they do what they do.  Second are the performances.  The actors in this movie all look as if they’re actually inhabiting the period they’re supposed to be living in.  The problem with a lot of recent Westerns I’ve seen is that they’re miscast and the actors look as if they’re playing dress up.  Not here.  And three is the location shooting.  3:10 TO YUMA was filmed in New Mexico and it looks absolutely terrific.  It has the look of vintage 1950’s/1960’s Westerns.

            The relationship between Dan Evans and Ben Wade is at the heart of this movie and both Christian Bale and Russell Crowe do splendid jobs of acting.  Russell Crowe doesn’t play Ben Wade as a foaming-at-the-mouth-mad-dog killer.  Wade is surprisingly intelligent, charming, educated, artistic and talented.  In fact, he’s probably the smartest person in the movie and he has a scary insight into human nature.  He can sit down with you for five minutes and tell you things about yourself you’ve kept shut up deep inside yourself for years.  Dan Evans is nowhere near as smart or intelligent or talented.  But he has a soul.  A soul that intrigues Ben Wade and one he comes to respect.  One of the best things about the movie is seeing how the relationship between the two men develops in ways I certainly didn’t see coming.

            Christian Bale is an actor that I think one day is going to achieve the status reserved for Brando and Olivier.  He’s just that good.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him give a bad performance and I’ve followed his career since “Empire Of The Sun”.  I was really interested in seeing how he would handle himself in a Western and I enjoyed his performance a lot.  He takes to the Western like a duck takes to water and I certainly hope he does more of them.  As for Russell Crowe, this isn’t his first Western.  He did a great job in Sam Raimi’s “The Quick And The Dead’ and here he makes his Ben Wade a totally absorbing and interesting character, one that we watch just to see what he’ll do next because this is the type of guy who never does or says what you expect.

            The supporting cast does a fine job in the roles and I really liked Peter Fonda here, considering that his dad Henry was in what I consider the finest Western ever made: Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon A Time In The West”.  Peter has a lot of fun playing a tough-as-horsehide bounty hunter here.  Fans of the TV show “Firefly” will want to keep an eye out for Alan Tudyk who plays a horse doctor who discovers he’s also a man of action.

            The action scenes are thrilling and just what I expect from a Western.  There’s gunplay aplenty, especially during the last half hour of the movie where we have a number of plot twists that are thrown at us in such a way that I defy you not to be sitting on the edge of your seat.  And I’ve said this about a number of recent movies but I’m going to say it again: much as I love CGI there’s some movies you don’t need it for and The Western is one of them.  Sometimes it’s a pleasure to go see a movie where it’s Real People doing the stunts.

            So should you see 3:10 TO YUMA?  If you’re as big a Western fan as me, Hell, yes.  Even if you’re not a Western fan and just want to see a movie with great action, solid acting and stunning cinematography, yes.  If you’re a fan of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, definitely.  They give wonderfully strong, fully characterized performances here.  3:10 TO YUMA is one of those movies you don’t want to wait for the DVD.  Go see it now.

120 minutes

Rated R

SHOOT ‘EM UP

2007

New Line Cinema

Written and Directed by Michael Davis

Produced by Susan Montford and Don Murphy

            I’m going to give you the best recommendation I can give you for SHOOT ‘EM UP and it comes from my wife Patricia.  We went to see this movie and I was fully prepared for her to hate it.  86 minutes later we left the theater and I asked her what she thought of it.

            “I loved it.” Says she, taking me totally by surprise and yet again reminding me that I should never be so arrogant as to presume to predict what a woman will think.

            “What did you like about it?” I ask.

            Patricia smiles at me and says quite seriously: “I like a movie that gives you exactly what the title says it will give you.”

            And she’s exactly on the money: SHOOT ‘EM UP is exactly that and nothing more: a series of gloriously over the top, spectacularly inventive and violent shootouts that is hung on a plot so bizarre and outrageous that it leaves you with only two options: sit back and have a good time or just get up and leave the theater and go see another movie.  Really.  SHOOT ‘EM UP is just that kind of movie.  It makes no apologies for what it is.  You either just have to go along or go home.

            Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) is sitting on a bench waiting for a bus, eating raw carrots when a bleeding pregnant woman runs past him.  Five seconds later a bunch of guys with guns in a car screech past him, waving guns out of the windows and following the pregnant woman.  On an impulse, Mr. Smith follows and in a devastating gun battle wipes out the guys in the car and delivers the baby, severing the umbilical cord by firing a bullet through it.  The mother catches a round through the forehead and Mr. Smith goes on the run with the child.  He’s being pursued by Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti) a former FBI forensic profiler gone bad who now leads a team of badass gunslingers whose only job is to recover the child Mr. Smith is now caring for.

            Mr. Smith enlists the aid of Donna Quintano (Monica Belluci) a prostitute whose specialty really comes in handy: you see, she fulfills men who have breast feeding fantasies.  So Mr. Smith offers her $5000 dollars to breast feed the baby while he goes about the business of annihilating the army of killers Mr. Hertz sends after him and maybe while he’s doing that he can find out why everybody seems intend on killing this baby.  If I told you that Mr. Smith eventually learns that the baby is tied into a dying Presidential candidate whose life can be saved only by the bone marrow of infants and his campaign is being bankrolled by a arms merchant you’d call me crazy. But it is what it is.

            SHOOT ‘EM UP is the kind of movie that John Woo used to make before Hollywood destroyed his talent.  It’s a ‘movie’ movie if you know what I mean.  It makes no pretensions at being realistic.  It throws the most improbable characters, situations and plot twists at you and you either say; “What the hell, I’m having fun” or you say ‘Screw it.”  You kinda get what writer/director Michael Davis is going for in the first confrontation between Mr. Smith and Mr. Hertz when they’re pointing guns at each other from about a foot away while Mr. Smith, who is chewing a carrot says; “What’s up, Doc?” and Mr. Hertz responds with: “You wascilly wabbit, you” Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti are basically playing live action versions of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd who are really trying to kill each other with no bullshit.

            Clive Owen is one of my favorite actors and he is obviously having a fun time playing the stone-faced hero who can escape from any situation and who handles a pair of 9mm Berettas almost as good as Chow Yun Fat.  He and Monica Belluci make a great team as the dysfunctional surrogate parents of the child that they have inherited and there is something honestly redeeming about the way they determine to protect this child.  Paul Giamatti is the one actor who is having the best time in this movie.  It’s so unlike anything he’s ever played before and you can see it in his eyes how much he’s enjoying himself.  And yeah, Giamatti makes for one great bad guy. 

            And how about those gunfights?  Take it from me: every single gunfight in SHOOT ‘EM UP is good enough that any other director would have ended his movie with any of these.  But here, they come one right after another.  Just when you think the one you just saw was so outrageous that it couldn’t be topped here comes another one that will not only thrill you with the sheer energy and audacity of the choreography but it’ll make you giggle as well.   And there’s a gunfight that takes place between Mr. Smith and a dozen assassins who have all jumped out of a plane and are plummeting to the ground that wouldn’t be out of place in a pre-Daniel Craig James Bond movie that really is off the chain cool.

            So should you see SHOOT ‘EM UP?  If you’re an action movie junkie like me, you probably already have.  SHOOT ‘EM UP doesn’t have a single realistic moment in the movie.  But I enjoyed the hell out of the fact that the actors and filmmakers were willing to throw everything out the window and just have a good time telling a really out there story and do it with incredible action and their collective tongues firmly in their cheeks.  SHOOT ‘EM UP gives you exactly what the title says it’ll give you and if you expect any more than that then you paid your money for the wrong movie. 

86 minutes

Rated R for graphic violence and language.  And I MEAN it.  There’s a LOT of violence here as well as a pretty graphic torture scene near the end.  And don’t even get me started on the scene where Clive Owen and Monica Belluci are having sex and he has to fight off half a dozen guys trying to kill them AND continue having sex with her.  It’s a scene you have to see to believe, trust me.

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

2007

Universal

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Produced by Frank Marshall, Doug Liman, Patrick Crowley and Paul L. Sandberg

Screenplay by Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi

Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum

            THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM ends the same way that “The Bourne Identity” began: with a man floating in water.  And like in that movie, the body of water is a symbolic womb in which the man is restored to life.  Maybe I’m being a little bit too high falutin’ and film criticy for what is essentially a high energy action/adventure espionage movie but it’s a thought that occurred to me when at some point in the movie it’s casually thrown off that Jason Bourne wasn’t just a name picked at random.  Think about it.  Bourne=Born Again.  Because in this movie we at last find out who Jason Bourne actually was before he became the world’s most wanted and deadliest man and what he gave up to get that distinction.

            A London journalist named Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) has been publishing articles in a prominent newspaper.  Stories about things he has no business knowing about.  Such as Operation Treadstone, The Blackbriar Project and an internationally wanted assassin named Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) The CIA takes umbrage to this kind of press and starts following Ross to find out who his source is.  So does Jason Bourne as he also wants to know who the source is.  With Jason Bourne back on the scene it isn’t long before the CIA assigns Deputy Director Vosun (David Strathairn) to do what the Deputy Directors in the first two movies couldn’t do: take Jason Bourne out once and for all.  This mandate comes straight from the top: the new CIA Director Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn) who is just about sick and tired of this whole Jason Bourne business and just wants it over with over the strong objections of Deputy Director Pamela Landry (Joan Allen)

            During a dangerously complicated chase through Waterloo Station, Bourne is identified and Vosun assumes that Bourne must have been the reporter’s source and thereby pulls out all the stops, assigning an agent named Paz (Edgar Ramirez) to kill Bourne and bringing in Pamela Landry to assist in the job since she’s one of the only two people left alive who’s hunted Bourne before.

            The other one is Bourne’s former Paris handler Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) who once again encounters Bourne in Madrid where he’s followed a lead he got from Simon Ross to a man named Neal Daniels, a CIA section chief who was one of the top men involved with Treadstone.  Nicky decides to help Jason and they both go to Tangier where Daniels is hiding from a really bloodthirsty assassin named Desh (Joey Ansah).  Things go really bad in Tangier which forces Nicky to go into hiding and Bourne to go to New York where he has no choice but to get Pamela Landry to help him get information on the location of the secret Treadstone training facility in Manhattan.  Because in that facility is a man named Dr. Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney) who has all the answers to all of Bourne’s questions.  Now Bourne’s only problem is outwitting Vosun and his army of CIA agents.  And even if Bourne can do that there’s still Paz to deal with.  A killer who’s younger, faster, stronger than Bourne and is aching for a chance to prove he’s the better killer.

            By now you’ve either seen the first two films in this series or you haven’t.  If you have then I don’t have to give you the hard sell.  You know how good the first two were and you expect more of the same from this one and it doesn’t disappoint.  I will say this: unlike most movie trilogies where the final installments ends on an upbeat note, don’t expect that here.  In fact, “The Bourne Identity” is the most cheerful and upbeat of the three.  THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM is the darkest and most downbeat of the three movies.  Even though Jason Bourne learns who he is and what Treadstone is, the knowledge brings him no closure and no joy.

            Let’s get the things I didn’t like out of the way first: as in “The Bourne Supremacy” director Paul Greengrass insists on using the hand-held camera technique for his fight scenes and it’s a damn shame because the fight between Bourne and Desh is a doozy.  I only wish I could have seen more of it.  I liked how Julia Stiles had more to do in this movie than she did in the first two but there’s a really odd scene that played to me as if Nicky Parsons was hinting that she and Jason Bourne (or the man he was before he became Bourne) had some kind of romantic relationship.  This didn’t track with me at all considering the way the two of them acted towards each other in the first two movies.   In fact, I couldn’t buy Nicky’s sudden defection from the CIA to help Bourne.  There’s a scene where Bourne is fleeing across rooftops from the Tangier police while trying to follow Desh and get to him before he gets to Nicky that goes on way too long for my taste.  And didn’t we have Jason Bourne engaged in a brutal car chase with the assassin assigned to kill him in “The Bourne Supremacy”?  Did we have to have another one in this movie?  Three screenwriters and they couldn’t think of another way for Bourne and Paz to get it on?

            What did I like?  Jason Bourne really gets a workout in this one fighting off the two assassins, Desh and Paz.  Either the CIA wised up and started hiring a better grade of assassin or else Bourne is just getting older.  Either way, he doesn’t take them out as easily as he did the assassins in the last movie.  Although none of the killers in this movie have the same aura of menace that Clive Owen had in the first movie, they’re satisfactory opponents.  I love the European locales in all three of the movies.  I dunno, somehow spy/espionage movies carry more weight with me when they’re not confined to the United States.  And this one goes all over the place: London, Madrid, Tangier, New York and I’m sure I’m leaving out two or three other exotic locales.

            So should you see THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM?  Hell, you’ve come this far, so why not?  Despite my nitpicks I enjoyed this one thoroughly and wholeheartedly.  I think a lot of it had to with that I had seen the first two right before I went to see this one so I didn’t feel like I had seen three separate movies.  I felt like I had watched one six-hour film so I was carried along with the action and story and didn’t have time to let the excitement drain away by a two year break between films.  The acting is just as good as in the first two and the revelations about the true identity of Jason Bourne won’t make you feel like you’ve been jerked around.  I’m not giving anything away by telling you that things are left open for another Jason Bourne movie (and if the money this one is pulling in is any indication, I’d bet my Ian Fleming collection there will be) but even if they don’t, things are tied up well enough that the series can end on a satisfactory note.  It’s a terrific trilogy of films.  Very well made and very well acted with outstanding stunts and edge of your seat plotting.  By all means, enjoy.

Rated PG-13

111 minutes

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY

2004

Universal

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Produced by Doug Liman and Frank Marshall

Screenplay by Tony Gilroy

Based on the Novel by Robert Ludlum

            Despite being made two years after the first Jason Bourne movie: “The Bourne Identity” THE BOURNE SUPREMACY could have been shot back to back with the earlier film as it picks up the story of Jason Bourne without a stumble or a hitch.  It doesn’t even take time to recap what happened in that earlier film but honestly, when we live in a world filled with Blockbusters, Netflixes, Targets, Wal-Marts, downloadable movie services like Vongo, PPV and such, is there any reason for a recap in any sequel? 

            So with hardly so much as a title card to tell us what movie we’re watching, THE BOURNE SUPREMACY jumps right into the story: two years after the events of the previous movie, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) and his girlfriend Marie (Franka Potente) are living in India with Jason still trying to piece together his fragmented memory.  He keeps a sort of diary where he records the flashes of faces, voices and places that come to him in his dreams.  More and more memories of Berlin are crowding his mind and Jason begins to think that there’s a crucial part of his life there that maybe he should investigate.

            And just like in the previous movie, here comes a pesky assassin to take a crack at killing the infamous Jason Bourne.  However the wrong person is killed and that sets Jason off on a quest of revenge this time around.  In the last movie he told Director Conklin of The Treadstone Project (Chris Cooper) that if they didn’t leave him alone he’d bring the war right back to them.  In this movie he keeps his word.  Not that the CIA is going to take what he’s handing out without a fight.  In fact, a team is put together to find Jason Bourne and destroy him once and for all.  Deputy Director Pamela Landry (Joan Allen) is heading up the team and she’s got a personal stake in this as she’s convinced that Jason killed two of her field agents who were in the middle of a $3 million dollar deal to buy documents relating to the theft of $20 million dollars of CIA funds seven years ago.  The evidence is plain: Jason’s fingerprints were found at the scene and there’s a paper trail leading back to Conklin that makes Landry think that Jason and Conklin were in it together to steal the money.  Landry enlists Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) who created Treadstone and Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) who was Jason’s Paris handler on the team to find Jason.  But Jason Bourne isn’t hard to find as he’s cutting down everything the CIA sends at him to find out who is still trying to have him killed.

            Now there’s a lot in this one that’s similar to “The Bourne Identity” in that the main thrust of the plot is that Jason Bourne is driven by his overwhelming need to discover who he actually is, what The Treadstone Project actually was all about and why the CIA is still trying to kill him after two years.  What isn’t similar is that there’s a subplot in this one as there’s a third faction that is pitting Jason Bourne against The CIA while they sit back and twiddle their thumbs, waiting for both sides to annihilate each other.  Also, in the first one, Jason had Marie to talk to and explain what he was doing and so, explain to us.  He’s on his own for much of the movie but we still get an explanation of what he’s doing and why since we have Brian Cox and Julia Stiles reprising their roles from the first movie and their characters are all to familiar with Jason Bourne and what he’s capable of.

            Matt Damon continues to play Jason Bourne with the same remarkable physicality he demonstrated in “The Bourne Identity.”  Jason Bourne has more in common with Jack Bauer than James Bond in that Jason Bourne relies far more on his own brain and brawn to get out of the dangerous situations he finds himself in rather than fancy gadgets or far-out weaponry.  A good old fashioned Brooklyn style asskicking or a well placed shot to the head from a Glock is good enough for Mr. Bourne.  Since Jason Bourne doesn’t have a girlfriend to worry about in this one, Matt Damon is all business and he handles his business well.

            Joan Allen is very good as Jason Bourne’s new nemesis but she’s no Conklin clone.  She actually puts together inconsistencies the events and in the behavior of Ward Abbott, who keeps insisting Jason Bourne should be killed and comes to her own conclusions as to what is actually going on.  Brian Cox manages to keep surprising us even though his character basically has one line he does variations on every five minutes: “Kill Jason Bourne!” and Julia Stiles gets to have more than a few lines and get in on some of the action outside of the office in this one.

            Speaking of action…the hand-to-hand combats in “The Bourne Identity” were really something to gasp about as they were done so marvelously well.  Not so in THE BOURNE SUPREMACY.  I really have a dislike of the hand-held camera technique being used in fight scenes.  I know it’s supposed to make you feel like you’re right in the middle of the action but when I watch a movie I want to see the action.  If I want to be right in the middle of the action I’ll attend an Aryan Brotherhood rally with a white woman on my arm.  I like fight scenes where I can see who is hitting whom and how.  The fight scenes in THE BOURNE SUPREMACY are a messy blur of arms and legs.  But I will say that the climatic car chase is exhilarating, even for somebody like me who’s seen car chases up the wazoo.  You can plainly see that it’s really Matt Damon getting slammed around when other cars crash into his at 80 or 90 miles an hour and that it’s not being done with CGI.  Much as I was disappointed by the fight scenes in THE BOURNE SUPREMACY I have to give props for the excellent stunt work.

            So should you see THE BOURNE SUPREMACY?  Sure.  While not having the same surprising thrills as “The Bourne Identity” it is a worthy sequel that carries the story along and provides enough twists and turns that you can’t wait to find out what’s going to happen next.  Questions about the true identity of Jason Bourne are answered even as new questions are raised, presumably to be answered in “The Bourne Ultimatum” The spy movie needed a good shot of adrenaline to revitalize the genre and the Jason Bourne movies provide that shot.  Spring for the rental fee and enjoy.  Or even better, buy both of ‘em.  I did.  I think you’ll want to see them both again.

Rated: PG-13

108 minutes

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

2002

Universal

Directed by Doug Liman

Executive Produced by Robert Ludlum

Produced by Patrick Crowley, Richard N. Gladstein and Doug Liman

Screenplay by Tony Gilroy and W. Blake Herron

Based on the novel written by Robert Ludlum

            I’m convinced that television shows like “Alias” and “24’ as well as movies like the “Mission: Impossible” series and THE BOURNE IDENTITY are the reason for the recent rebooting of the James Bond franchise.  Spies on television and in the movies have grown up and no longer take on world conquering supervillains with weird fetishes.  No, the bad guys are more rooted in the reality of our world after 9/11 and so are the heroes.  Take Jason Bourne, for instance.  A killing machine of the highest order with a nearly superhuman capacity for taking punishment as well as dishing it out.  Possessed of a frightening range of skills and talents, the three movies this character has appeared in have all been wildly successful, eclipsing the “Mission: Impossible” series in terms of style, story and character.  Jason Bourne doesn’t rely on gadgets and witty quips to get him out of trouble.  He’d rather just kill you and get it over with. 

            THE BOURNE IDENTITY begins with a fishing trawler finding the body of a man (Matt Damon) floating in the Mediterranean Sea.  The crew hauls him aboard and the ship’s doctor finds that the man has been shot twice in the back and has an odd device planted under the skin.  A device that contains the number of a Swiss bank account.  When the man awakens he doesn’t remember who he is or how he got in his predicament.  The man makes his way to Zurich and the bank.  Waiting for him is a safe deposit box with a fortune in various currencies, a gun and a dozen passports, all with different names.  He chooses the name of the first passport he picked up to use: Jason Bourne and begins his quest to find out his true identity and what happened to him.

            His quest is hampered by the fact that no matter where he goes everybody is trying to kill him.  Even in the United States embassy where he goes for help.  The next thing he knows he’s got a squad of pissed off Marines after him.  But Jason Bourne surprises even himself when he demonstrates extraordinary fighting skills and manages to elude the Marines and escape the embassy.  Even though he can’t remember who he is, he remembers an astounding array of talents that help him stay alive.  With the help of a rootless girl (Franka Potente) he met in the embassy, Jason travels from Switzerland to France to follow the clues to his identity.  He’s unaware that in America, the CIA is in a panic due to his being alive.  Especially Alexander Conklin (Chris Cooper) the Director of the mysterious Operation Treadstone and Deputy Director Abbott (Brian Cox) both of who are literally sweating pounds off at the thought of Jason Bourne running around loose. 

            Jason Bourne swiftly comes to realize that his being shot and dumped in the sea is somehow tied into the assassination of a deposed African dictator and if he could keep those pesky assassins that Conklin sends after him off of his back maybe he could piece together what happened long enough to keep himself and his ally Marie alive.

            THE BOURNE IDENTITY is what I call a ‘stripped-down’ movie in that there really isn’t much else outside of the plot.  There’s no sub-plots, no characters in the movie that have nothing to do with what’s going on, none of that stuff.  What you see on the screen is directly related to what’s going on right at that moment.  There’s nothing happening that doesn’t advance the plot.  Which is okay for a movie of this type.  It’s supposed to be nothing but a straight-up and down spy/action-adventure thriller and that’s exactly what we get.  The story itself is simplified a lot as compared to the novel it’s based on and even the made for TV mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain (which I’ve seen and it ain’t bad at all) focusing mostly on Jason Bourne trying to find out who he really is and not much more than that.

            Matt Damon is terrific as Jason Bourne.  He needs to give lessons in how to play an action hero to his boy Ben Affleck.  Matt Damon is wonderfully physical and totally believable in the fight scenes as well as a scene where he scales the outside of a building ala Spider-Man to escape.  Franka Potente is a charming actress who I loved in “Run Lola Run” but here her only purpose is to have another character for Jason Bourne to explain things to and thereby, explain them to us.  Chris Cooper and Brian Cox have a lot of fun sniping at each other and sweating every time Bourne gets away from one of their assassins.  Julia Stiles has a small role as a CIA technical support agent in Paris and pay attention to her here because she’ll play a much larger role in the two sequels.  Clive Owen is great as an assassin who corners Jason Bourne in a farmhouse and their showdown is one of the best sequences in the movie.

            The acting in this movie is a lot better than it needs to be and goes a long way to lifting what is essentially a B movie plot into the A- minus class.  The fights are fairly realistic and when Jason Bourne walks away from a fight he does so bruised up and limping.  One of the best scenes has Franka Potente’s character going in shock after witnessing an extraordinarily brutal fight that ends in a surprising death.  It’s that kind of action-adventure movie that tends to deal with death a little more realistically than most movies of the genre.  And once in a while I find it genuinely refreshing to watch a movie where the big action sequences don’t rely on CGI.

            So should you see THE BOURNE IDENTITY?  You probably already have, as well as the two sequels.  But just in case you haven’t, please go ahead and spring for the rental fee.  THE BOURNE IDENTITY is a solid movie in terms of story, characterizations, action and pacing.  I love spy movies and THE BOURNE IDENTITY is a superior example of the genre.  Enjoy with my blessings.

Rated PG-13

113 minutes

BATMAN RETURNS

(1992)

Warner Bros.

Directed by Tim Burton
Produced by Peter Guber, Jon Peters and Michael E. Uslan
Based on “BATMAN” created by Bob Kane
Screenplay by Daniel Waters
Based on a story by Sam Hamm and Daniel Waters

BATMAN RETURNS is that rarest of movie animals: a sequel that actually stands on it’s own as a legitimate movie with it’s own identity and can be watched and enjoyed on it’s own without having to know anything about or even seen the previous movie. There are a few references made to events in the first movie, mostly about Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend Vicky Vale (played by Kim Basinger) but they slide right by and don’t get in the way of what we came to see, which is Batman and his world in glorious, operatic live action. I’d go so far to say that as far as the live action movies are concerned, BATMAN RETURNS is my favorite (sorry, but the title of overall best Batman film goes to MASK OF THE PHANTASM) in terms of acting, casting, set design and my amazement at just how much story and characterization is packed into the 126 minutes of screen time. It’s probably the most fully realized vision of Batman’s world put on the screen to date (at least until we get to see how the upcoming Christian Bale starring movie stacks up) and Tim Burton deserves a lot of credit for giving comic book fans a Batman that accurately reflected the character they were reading about in today’s comic books, most notably Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” which was a big influence on the look and style of Burton’s films.

The movie opens in a gloomy gothic mansion (is there any other kind? Especially in Gotham City?) where a deformed mutant baby is born to horrified parents (the father is played by Paul Reubens aka PeeWee Herman) and subsequently dumped in a sewer where he’s found and raised by penguins. Hey, if alligators can live in New York sewers, why not penguins in Gotham City’s? He grows up and emerges from the sewers years later, claiming to want to regain his birthright and he discovers his true name: Oswald Cobblepot. But to the citizens of Gotham City as well as Batman he quickly becomes known by another name: The Penguin.

The Penguin swiftly forms an alliance with Gotham’s most powerful businessman, the wonderfully named Maximillian Schrek and the two scheme to oust the current mayor and put The Penguin in office. Now, while this is going on, Max’s executive secretary Selina Kyle stumbles onto the real secret purpose of Max Schrek’s proposed power plant idea and is ruthlessly murdered by Max. But she miraculously returns to life through the healing power of stray ally cats (I swear I’m not making this up) and as The Catwoman she hooks up with The Penguin in bringing down The Batman while romancing Bruce Wayne as Selina.

Got all that? I managed to boil it down to around two hundred words but there’s an awful lot of stuff that goes on between the words. The movie has to tell the origins of both The Penguin and Catwoman, explain Max Schrek’s power plant scheme, which really isn’t explained all that well, now that I think of it, explore the dual romance between Selina/Catwoman and Bruce/Batman, the political power play of Cobblepot and Schrek and still find time for the missile firing killer penguins.

You may ask, well, with all that going on, where’s time for Batman? Actually there isn’t much but when we do see him, he’s in action, doing the things we want to see Batman doing. Unlike the previous movie which was dominated so heavily by Jack Nicholson’s definitive performance as The Joker, this movie remembers that Batman is supposed to be the main character and the script does a good job of showing us enough of Batman/Bruce Wayne this time around.

The overall look of the movie is simply wonderful. Gotham City looks like it was designed by Fritz Lang on acid and the costuming has a 1940’s feel to it as well as the vehicles and even the computers in the Bat Cave have a futuristic retro look to them. And the performances…well, what can you say about the cast that hasn’t been said before. Michael Keaton remains, for me at least, the definitive Batman/Bruce Wayne and the one thing I really like about Keaton as an actor is that you can look at him and see him thinking. Some of his best moments in the movie is when as Bruce Wayne he’s putting the clues together and coming up with the answers and we can see him working out the problem. And of course, when he’s in the Batsuit, Keaton uses his wonderfully expressive eyes to full advantage.

Michelle Pfeiffer follows in the footsteps of some outstanding actresses who have played Catwoman in the past and she’s more than worthy to stand alongside of Julie Newman, Lee Merriweather and Eartha Kitt. We’re not even gonna mention that pretender who dared steal the Catwoman name for one dismal movie. Michelle Pfeiffer is resoundingly sexy in her skintight vinyl suit and as Selina Kyle projects a sort of wistful vulnerability. Danny DeVito plays Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin and his disgustingly loopy portrayal of the character as a grotesquely malignant monster with deformed hands, a bulbous body and drooling black bile most of the time. Burgess Meredith this ain’t. When this movie had it’s original theatrical run, it was reported that little kids had to be taken out into the lobby, sobbing because The Penguin frightened them. In fact, parents themselves were pretty shocked by the movie on the whole, expecting to take their kids to see a fun superhero romp. And DeVito’s Penguin IS a godawfully vile creature. I suppose DeVito was trying to give us a Penguin to be pitied but all I wanted to do was to see the poor wretch be put out of his misery.

And Christopher Walken, as usual, steals every scene he’s in. Max Schrek is a new villain created for the movie and not one of Batman’s Rogues Gallery but he fits right in as if he’d always been in Gotham City all along. Michael Gough is impeccably droll as Alfred and he and Keaton have a great scene where they discuss a bit of business from the first movie that had Batfans wondering if Alfred had lost his mind.

BATMAN RETURNS is simply one of the best superhero movies made. While the story is needlessly complicated with the three villains running around with their own plans and agendas, at least they do have motivations, which is more than I can say for the villains of the two following BATMAN movies and we can follow what’s going on and more importantly, why. The sets are awesome looking, the performances right on point and for fans of the current incarnation of the character, this is the movie that they probably will all agree comes the closest to translating Batman from the comic book to the silver screen.

126 minutes
Rated PG-13: There’s no really harsh language in the movie and the violence is strictly comic book except for two scenes where it’s pretty apparent that Batman has either killed or severely crippled/maimed his opponents. The Penguin is unnecessarily repugnant with his spitting black bile through much of the picture and the movie plainly explores the psychosexual costume fetish that is a part of the Batman/Bruce /Selina/Catwoman relationship so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

DOGMA

(1999)

ViewAskew Productions

Directed by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier (uncredited)
Written by Kevin Smith
Produced by Scott Mosier, Kevin Smith, Jonathan Gordon and Laura Greenlee

I was watching “DOGMA” in the den upstairs when The Wife came up to use the bathroom and after she had finished her personal business she came into the den, sat down and watched about a half hour of the movie with me and was shocked by the raw language and asked who the characters on the screen were and I replied that they were angels trying to get back into Heaven. The Wife shook her head ruefully and said; “The angels I know don’t use language like that.” I was just thankful she hadn’t walked in during the scene with Salma Hayek doing her thing in the strip club.

You see, The Wife is a devout Christian and she has firmly held beliefs and doesn’t like anybody monkeying with ‘em and I respect that. So if you too have firmly held religious beliefs, then I would strongly advise that you give “DOGMA” a pass since it shows celestial beings swearing, drinking and engaging in other acts that celestial beings are not normally depicted engaging in.

You want an example? I’ll give you the best one: Salma Hayek shows up in the movie as Serendipity, a Heavenly Muse who has grown tired of passing on billions of good ideas to human creative artists and has decided to try her hand at being a stripper to fulfill her own artistic needs. Now, personally, I applaud Kevin Smith for his good directorial judgment in taking advantage of having such a beautiful woman play the role of a stripper (and Salma Hayek comes off a lot better in this movie than she did in Barry Sonnenfeld’s disastrous Wild Wild West) but I can see where the notion of a celestial being who has knelt at The Throne Of God being a stripper would offend those who take their Christian beliefs seriously.

So if you’re one of those, go onto another review right now. I’ll hold off on the rest of the review until you leave. That’s right…exit is over there to your left…please watch your step….yes, go on upstairs…The Wife has refreshments for you and I’ll let you know when the “DOGMA” review is finished and you can come back downstairs…please leave my dog alone, sir…

Okay, who’s left? Okay, I’ll tell the rest of you what the movie’s about…

Linda Fiorentino is Bethany Sloan, a backsliding Catholic who works at an abortion clinic who is woken out of a sound sleep one night by Metatron, an angel who appears as a pillar of flame in her bedroom. After Bethany apologies for turning the fire extinguisher on him, Metatron advises her that she has been picked for a Holy Quest. There are these two rogue angels who were exiled to Wisconsin eons ago that have found a loophole in The Divine Plan that will allow them to circumvent God’s Word and return to Heaven. Now, this is not good for Humanity since as we all know, God’s Word is infallible and if the rogue angels actually manage to achieve their goals, they will bring about the End Of All There Is.

Slackers Jay and Silent Bob who act as her bodyguards on her journey to prevent The End Of All That There Is join Bethany on her Holy Quest. This is despite the fact that Jay is totally obsessed with having sex with Bethany to the point that he makes her promise that if it looks as if they’ll fail in their mission and The End Of All There Is is imminent, she will have sex with him. Thank goodness for Silent Bob, who despite the fact that he does not speak (well, he does occasionally say a couple of words…and when he does, it’s usually very funny) seems to have a handle on this whole saving the world stuff and takes it all in stride. Bethany is also joined by Rufus, who claims that he was the 13th Apostle and was left out of The Bible due to racist policies on the part of the guys who wrote The Gospels. This incredibly unlikely band of heroes, along with Serendipity travel to a church in New Jersey where they must prevent the rogue angels from entering and thereby..ahh, you know the drill…

None of the above can even give you an idea of how laugh out loud, hilariously funny “DOGMA” is. Chris Rock as Rufus is his usual hilarious self without even trying, but the rest of the all-star cast is equally outrageously sidesplitting. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are outstanding as the rogue angels and some of the best parts of the movie includes some really well-written dialog between the two and there’s even some in-jokes Ben Affleck slips in regarding the tabloid rumors about him.  Who else? Well, Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith as Jay and Silent Bob are also excellent and Alan Rickman as Metatron is his usually wonderfully droll self.

But “DOGMA” isn’t just a comedy. It’s also got a lot of thought behind the subject matter and I cheer screenwriter Kevin Smith (who is a Catholic) for taking on such delicate subject matter and not only giving us scenes that are highly questionable in taste but also having some scenes that shows that he really cares about the material he’s dealing with and he’s not just interested in taking pot shots at organized religion. One scene that truly touched me is where Metatron explains to Bethany about the pain he felt the day he had to tell Jesus Christ what The Savior’s life’s mission was and there’s another scene where Bartelby rages at Loki how betrayed and lost he feels that God has placed humanity over angels. It’s an almost painful scene to watch and Ben Affleck does some truly fine work in this scene as we come to understand that his anger comes from a love betrayed: he’s jealous that God loves humanity over angels and there’s an irony in his jealousy: angels aren’t supposed to have human emotions but Affleck’s character feels nothing but jealousy and that makes him closer to humanity than any other angel.

If you want to watch “DOGMA” (and I DO recommend it) do so with an open mind and I think you’ll see there’s a lot in it to like. It’s a comedy, a road movie, an action-adventure, a live action comic book and a pretty darn good way to be entertained for two hours. It’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen with a religious theme and even though it treats it’s subject matter in a way that may not be to everybody’s taste, it’s well worth watching just for the energetic performances and extremely entertaining story. And it even has GOD who shows up in the last fifteen minutes and GOD is quite sweet, innocent and likeable and even personable.

Dogma is rated R for some REALLY harsh and strong language, so if you’ve got delicate ears, don’t say I didn’t warn you. And if you hold with fundamental religious beliefs then this might not be the movie for you. Personally, I think this movie is filled with an abundance of faith and the affirmation that there is a God but the way that Kevin Smith presents certain ideas might be offensive to some.

Bringing Down The House

(2003)

Touchstone Pictures

Directed by Adam Shankman
Produced by Ashok Amritraj
Written by Jason Filardi

Right off the bat I guess I should tell you my first impression after the first ten minutes of my watching “Bringing Down The House”: it’s a pilot for a sitcom. And The Wife agreed with me 100%. But you know something? The right elements are there and its entertaining enough that by the half-hour mark I didn’t even care. The cast is obviously having fun with what they’re doing and that fun comes across so well that I sat back with a goofy grin on my face and waited for the next outrageous situation and enjoyed the belly laughs as they came. And the movie does have quite a few belly laughs and more than a few quieter chuckles. It’s nowhere near in the same league as…oh, “Blazing Saddles” or “PORKY’S” but it is a very funny movie and does the one thing I absolutely demand from a comedy: it made me laugh.

Peter Sanderson is a corporate lawyer struggling through a separation from his wife and trying to stay two jumps ahead of the younger, more aggressive lawyers at his f