Movie Review: Blackfish

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Movie Review: Blackfish

Blackfish
Directed by: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Written by:  Gabriela Cowperthwaite & Eli B. Despres.

I am hardly an animal rights hardliner (I’m not going to stop eating meat any time too soon), but I am really starting to be convinced that perhaps it’s not the best idea to cage wild animals solely for the purpose of human amusement. The Oscar winning documentary The Cove (2009) was about dolphins, and how tortured they are in captivity and how callously they are killed. Now comes Blackfish, which wants to, and succeeds, in doing the same thing for Orcas. It focuses on one Orca in particular – Tilikum – who is now responsible for the death of three people – two trainers and an idiot who snuck into SeaWorld and thought it would be fun to swim with an Orca. Watching the film, it is impossible to feel anything but sympathy for Tilikum – who has had such a hard life that goes against his own animal instincts that you cannot really blame him for what he does. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel sympathy for the people who died because of Tilikum – I do, even if I just called that one guy an idiot (and I’ll stand by that). But when you take an animal out of his natural habitat, lock him in a small pool with other whales who don’t like him, force him to perform on a daily basis for years on end, it’s no wonder that he snapped.

Blackfish essentially tells Tilikum’s story through the perspective of the people who trained him, and whales like him, in parks such as SeaWorld. It starts with a harrowing recollection of how these whale were initially captured – a story that brings one of the fishermen to tears when he recalls just how cruel it turned out to be. Now, most animals at places like SeaWorld are now one that are born and bred in captivity – but Tilikum was not. He was ripped away from his family and friends – and if you think that’s no big deal, just wait until you hear the Orca experts describe just how emotionally evolved Orcas are, and how interconnected their family units are.

Tilikum is captured, and sent to a low rent amusement park in Victoria B.C. – where he is mistreated by a trainer using “negative” reinforcement, and locked away each night in a small tank with two female whales, who don’t like him very much, and constantly “rake” him – essentially running their teeth along his body, leaving wounds and permanent scars. In the wild, Tilikum could get away, but in captivity, he is trapped, and has no choice but to suffer the abuse. One day, a trainer slips, and their foot falls into the water – and Tilikum drags her under, and kills her. Although reports vary as to which of the three whales actually killed the trainer – eyewitnesses say it was Tilikum – and they could tell because he is the one with the floppy dorsal fin. After that, the park closes down and Tilikum is sold to SeaWorld – who keeps right on training him and making him perform every day. And while SeaWorld is undeniably better than the low-rent park that had him Tilikum the first time, it’s also hard to deny that “better” in this context is a relative term.

Blackfish, like The Cove, does not really try to be a fair and balanced documentary. It requested on multiple occasions, according to the documentary, to get someone from SeaWorld to speak to them on camera – and of course they refused. For the most part than Blackfish is certainly an advocacy documentary – one that argues that confining Orcas in captivity is devastating to them, and makes them act out in ways they normally do not do. After all, there has never been a fatal Orca attack on a human recorded in the wild, but Tilikum now has three fatalities on his record himself. I would have liked to have seen the “other side” of the issue as it were – but judging from the various statements from SeaWorld in response to the documentary – which are mainly corporate speak, and “refutes” points that the documentary doesn’t even make at times – I doubt they would have shed too much light on the subject. After all, SeaWorld is a multi-million dollar corporation, with many theme parks across America. They have a vested financial interest in keeping Orcas in captivity – and keeping them working with trainers. It makes for a better show.

As it stands, the movie is mainly made up of former SeaWorld trainers – all but one of whom has had a change of heart over the years. They question the training (or lack thereof) that they received before getting into the water with the whales, and the ones who worked directly with Tilikum say they were never given his complete history. The lone trainer who doesn’t seem to agree that Orcas should not be held in captivity argues that Tilikum is an isolated case – and should be treated as such – rather than a condemnation on the entire industry. Yet the movie does document other – fatal and non-fatal – incidents involving Orcas. While it is true (apparently) that there an Orca has never attacked and killed a human in their natural habitat – just in captivity – Orcas kill just about everything else. They kill other whales, sharks, dolphins, fish and as shown in some home footage in the documentary, sea lions. Orcas are predators – and when held in captivity with none of their usual prey to eat, doesn’t it make sense that once in a while, they are going to attack humans? You cannot blame an animal for being an animal.

I feel nothing but sympathy for the people whose death Tilikum caused – especially Dawn Brancheau, because of the three victims, it is her the movie focuses on, and her story is told by people who knew her. She was known as one of SeaWorld’s best and most responsible trainers. Like the other trainers in the movie, she got involved because she loved animals – they all care deeply for the Orcas that they worked with. Hers, and the other two deaths, are tragedies. But they are a tragedy that could have been avoided – and I don’t think we can realistically say that Tilikum is responsible for them – he’s just as much of a victim as they are. That was the overwhelming feeling I got from watching Blackfish – that Tilikum deserved a better life than the one he has had.

My Answer to the Most Recent Criticwire Survey: Origin Story

My Answer to the Most Recent Criticwire Survey: Origin Story

After a few weeks hiatus, when the original editor of the Criticwire blog left, and a new one came in, the Criticwire Survey is back. This week asks for the Critic's origin story - how they got to be a film critic in the first place. As I have done a few times when answering these questions, I'll say that I don't really consider myself a critic - I write about movies mainly for myself, to work out my own feelings towards a movie, and if others get something out of the reviews, great. I don't paid to write, probably never will get paid to do so, and I'm fine with that. It is a hobby - although one I do take seriously as I continually strive to get better - but I'm happy in my tiny corner of the internet.

So with that out of the way,  how did I start writing about movies. It started by falling in love with movies - I always liked movies as a child, but remember a few moments in particular where I knew I loved them - a very long bus ride with my brother's hockey team (after they played like shit, are were quiet all the way home) where we watched Oliver Stone's JFK is still seared in my mind, even though I was 10 at the time (and no, I don't recommend watching any movie on a bus, but this time worked). Than over the next few years being pulled in my movies like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (yes, I was too young to see them). I also remember my yearly trip to my Aunt's where we would often end the day watching a classic movie - this is how I got exposed to the Marx Brothers, Casablanca and Citizen Kane for the first time. It was also at my Aunt's house that I first encountered film criticism - in the form of one of Roger Ebert's Video Guide, which I read a lot early in the morning, since I was an earlier riser than everyone else. As my love of film grew, I read more Ebert, starting watching Siskel and Ebert, and eventually starting reading reviews by others as well.

And then, at some point, I started writing about movies. It started slowly in high school and throughout college - brief reviews that I didn't do anything with, and then reviews I posted in the user's section of IMDB - but I grew tired of that. It wasn't really until about 2003 that I actually started writing reviews for every new movie I saw - and some older ones as well. After six years, and more than  1,000 reviews I did nothing with, and enough people telling me I should start a blog that I did in fact do that. So I've been writing reviews for 10 years, publishing them on this blog for 4 years, and I don't see that changing any time too soon.

Movie Review: Only God Forgives

Monday, July 22, 2013

Movie Review: Only God Forgives

Only God Forgives
Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn.
Written by: Nicolas Winding Refn.
Starring: Ryan Gosling (Julian), Kristin Scott Thomas (Crystal), Vithaya Pansringarm (Chang), Gordon Brown (Gordon), Yayaying Rhatha Phongam (Mai), Tom Burke (Billy), Sahajak Boonthanakit (Kim), Pitchawat Petchayahon (Phaiban), Charlie Ruedpokanon (Daeng), Kovit Wattanakul (Choi Yan Lee), Wannisa Peungpa (Kanita), Narucha Chaimareung (Papa San).

Nothing would make me happier than being able to say that Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives was some sort of misunderstood masterpiece or at least a guilty pleasure. This is, after all, the Danish filmmaker’s follow-up to Drive – one of my absolute favorite films of 2011, and arguably the best crime drama of this young decade so far, and Only God Forgives ranked very high on my most anticipated films of the year list. But alas, I cannot say that, because Only God Forgives is a horrible movie – violent and pretentious in equal doses, with most of the characters seemingly on the verge of falling asleep during any of their line readings. Drive was a crime drama that was deeper than it initially appeared to be (and I stand by that, even if I seem to be in the minority in thinking so – even among the many people who loved Drive). Only God Forgives on the other hand is a movie that acts like it is about something deeper – but peel back the layers and there’s nothing there. And yet, you watch the movie and you can tell everyone involved in making it is extremely talented – they just laid an egg this time out. Really talented people can work far worse movies than non-talented people – and Only God Forgives is a perfect example of that.

The movie takes place in Bangkok. Julian (Ryan Gosling) and his brother Billy (Tom Burke) work there as drug dealers, and have a boxing club as a front. After a violent fight sequence kicks off the film, we follow Billy on his quest to, in his words, “Fuck a 14 year old”. It doesn’t take him long to find one – but he doesn’t merely fuck her, he rapes and murders her. The cops – led by Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) are called – but Chang doesn’t arrest Billy. Instead, he calls the dead girl’s father, screams at him for allowing his daughter to become a prostitute, and then leaves him alone in the room with Billy. Needless to say, Billy doesn’t last long. Julian’s mother Crystal (Kristen Scott Thomas) arrives in Bangkok, and wants Julian to avenge his brother. When Julian finds out what Billy did, he kind of thinks his brother got what was coming to him – but his she-devil of the mother doesn’t care (“He must have had his reasons” she says) and wants the man who murdered her son – and Chang, the cop who allowed it to happen – and pretty much everyone else in Thailand to die to avenge her beloved son.

All of this probably sounds a lot better than the movie actually is. The basic plot outline could very easily be made into an extremely violent, entertaining crime thriller. Something like Drive, in fact. Winding Refn shouldn’t be expected to repeat himself – and while you can by the ever moving camera in Only God Forgives and the changing color palette that the same person is behind both films, the only way in which these films are really similar is that both are extremely violent and bloody. I don’t have a problem with blood and violence in a movie – as long as there seems to be a reason for it. In Only God Forgives, there doesn’t appear to be. There are no good guys in Only God Forgives, only degrees of awful really, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing if the characters we interesting – the problem being they’re not. Ryan Gosling, normally one of the best actors working together, appears almost comatose throughout the movie. His character in Drive didn’t say much – neither did his character in this year’s The Place Beyond the Pines – but in both of those movies, you could tell there was something going on inside of the characters – his performance in Drive in particular is masterfully subtle. But in Only God Forgives, he simply seems bored, lifeless and dull. I have heard some critics say that the sword wielding cop Chang, played by Vithaya Pansringarm, is the film’s hero, but really, he’s just as bad as everyone else – which again, I don’t object to, if he plays an interesting character. The problem is he doesn’t. The revelation about his home life may explain why he does what he does, but it doesn’t make him any more interesting. And why the hell the movie has him sing karaoke on a number of occasions?

There are two good things about Only God Forgives. One of them is the performance by Yayaying Rhatha Phongam as Mai, a prostitute frequented by Julian, who he stupidly brings along as his date to meet his mother. This is a small role – and she doesn’t really have much to do – but she does it remarkably well, making Mai into the only sympathetic character in the moving – the only person the audience can possibly care about. The other is the performance by Kristen Scott Thomas. Unlike everyone else in the movie, there is passion in her performance. Yes, she is in many ways a one note villain – whose every line is dripping with hatred, racism, cruelty, and creepiness in the way she talks about her sons and their penises (I’m pretty sure she has slept with both in them in the past). Everyone else in the movie is subdued almost to the point of lulling the audience to sleep – but you sit up and take notice when she’s onscreen.

Only God Forgives is a pretentious mess of a film. If Winding Refn had just given in to his base instincts (he has said repeatedly he makes “pornography” when talking about Only God Forgives) he may not have made a film as good as Drive, but he could have made Only God Forgives into a violent guilty pleasure. But by taking the film so deadly seriously, by draining it of any pleasure whatsoever, and seemingly instructing the entire cast except for Scott Thomas to play their roles like zombies, he has made a film that is both sickeningly violent and deadly dull. And that makes Only God Forgives one of the year’s worst films.

Movie Review: The Conjuring

Movie Review: The Conjuring

The Conjuring
Directed by: James Wan.
Written by: Chad Hayes & Carey Hayes.
Starring: Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren), Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren), Lili Taylor (Carolyn Perron), Ron Livingston (Roger Perron), Shanley Caswell (Andrea), Hayley McFarland (Nancy), Joey King (Christine), Mackenzie Foy (Cindy), Kyla Deaver (April), Shannon Kook (Drew), John Brotherton (Brad), Sterling Jerins (Judy Warren), Marion Guyot (Georgiana), Morganna Bridgers (Debbie), Amy Tipton (Camilla).

James Wan has quietly become one of the best directors of mainstream horror films working in America today. While many horror filmmakers are obsessed with the more violent films from the 1970s and 1980s – and all seem to want to make the next The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Wan has his sights on an era slightly earlier – the classic possession films of the late 1960s and early 1970s. His last film was the excellent, under rated Insidious, and now comes The Conjuring – an even better film, that feels like a forgotten horror film from the year it is set – 1971. Since Wan directed the original Saw, he has often been lumped in by the unobservant with the “torture porn” crowd, which isn’t accurate at all. While the Saw series certainly devolved into that, the first film – the only one Wan directed (he was an “executive producer” on the rest, which probably means he had very little input into them) was really more about atmosphere than torture. The same goes for the awful Dead Silence (2007) that was his follow-up. Even the violent revenge film Death Sentence (also 2007) – which is inarguably his bloodiest – also has a great sense of atmosphere. And that is what The Conjuring excels at. Here is a horror movie with almost no blood, guts or death – and it is easily the scariest film I have seen in a theater this year.

The film is about the Perron family – father Roger (Ron Livingston and) and mother Carolyn (Lili Taylor) and their five daughters – ranging from teenager verging on adulthood, to cute pre-school age. They are a picture perfect family – as we literally see in the many family portraits they have – who move to an old farmhouse in the middle of the Pennsylvania country. As you can guess, the house is haunted – but by what? As the family reaches the end of the rope, and things start spiraling out of control, they reach out to famed “Paranormal Detectives” Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) – best known for The Amityville Horror (which is referenced at the end of the movie, as this case predates that one) to figure out just exactly what is haunting them.

From the opening credits of The Conjuring on, Wan does his best to recreate the look and feel of the films from the era – I don’t think I’ve seen an opening scrawl quite like the one in The Conjuring in any many movies made in recent decades. This extends to the costumes and art direction as well. While often movies made today but set in the 1970s pretty much mock the clothes and style of the decade, The Conjuring does an excellent job of recreating them, without going overboard and becoming a distraction. Even the cinematography harkens back to the films of that era – a difficult thing to recreate in the digital age. The film is obviously inspired by masterpieces such as Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist – and while it would be nearly impossible to equal those two films (and this film doesn’t), The Conjuring easily ranks among the best of those two films many, many imitators.

Like those two films, The Conjuring depends more on atmosphere and slowly increasing tension rather than blood to scare the audience. Normally, I tire of horror movies that rely heavily on so called “BOO!” moments to scare the audience, but they are put to effective use in The Conjuring, because Wan knows not to overdo it, and enjoys toying with the audience. Sometimes, he is seemingly setting up a “BOO!” moment that never actually comes, and other times, they do, and yet other times, they come out of nowhere. An effective horror movie has to keep the audience guessing as to what is coming next – which Wan does amazingly well in The Conjuring.

But what elevates The Conjuring above most other horror movies is simple – the film is full of characters you actually like and get to know, and the film actually takes the Warrens and their beliefs and practices seriously. It is easy to mock Warrens – where Ed is a “demonologist” and Lorraine is “clairvoyant”, and if we’re talking in reality here, then no, I don’t really believe in either of them. But this is a movie after all, and the movie does take what they do seriously – and Wilson and especially Farmiga are excellent in their roles. Add in an excellent performance by Lili Taylor – playing for the most part a normal woman – and you have a horror movie that takes its subject more seriously than most, and contains performances far superior to most of what the genre has to offer.

I have tried not to reveal too much of the plot to the movie – in fact, I think I probably revealed less than the trailers do. As with many horror movies, surprise in a major element to the effectiveness of the film. The film may not break new ground, and may not be the masterpiece that the films that inspired it are, but as an example of the horror genre, it does everything just right.

Movie Review: The Act of Killing

Friday, July 19, 2013

Movie Review: The Act of Killing

The Act of Killing
Directed by: Joshua Oppenheimer.

When most people think of documentary films, they imagine a series of talking heads interspersed with archival footage. This is what most documentaries over the years have been, and probably will continue to be for years to come. But more and more often, documentary filmmakers are stretching the boundaries of the genre – doing fascinating, interesting things, and coming up with movies as original as any fiction film. Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is one of these documentaries. There will be people who complain that the movie is too easy on or sympathetic with its subjects or bring up ethical concerns with how Oppenheimer goes about getting the scenes he does, but it didn’t bother me. The Act of Killing is one of the most original, best documentaries of the year.

In 1965-66 the military tried to overthrow the government in Indonesia, failed, but then used “gangsters” to slaughter over half a million “communists” that led to a massive change in the political climate of the country. If you were identified as a communist, you were killed – although many weren’t really communists – they were union members, critics of the military or native Chinese citizens. This “purge” was supported by most Westerns governments, but what it was really genocide. But while most people who take part in this sort of slaughter are eventually held accountable – or at least viewed as murderers and war criminals, the gangsters who slaughtered the “communists” have been celebrated as heroes in their home country ever since. The Act of Killing sets out to explore this act of mass killing – and mainly the men who did it.

They are not hard to find. Everyone knows who they are, and in some cases, they live on the same street as the family of their victims. They also make no attempt to try and hide their involvement. They openly brag about it to anyone who will listen – often talking in front of their young grandchildren, and whoever else happens to be around. Members of the military don’t make it much of a secret either that they still respect these confessed killers – and the media brags about the role they played as well. In short, it doesn’t seem like anyone has any regrets about what happened or all the people they killed.

Oppenheimer comes up with an interesting way to get the killers to tell him about what happened – by having them recreate them. Learning that many of the killers loved American movies, the killers recreate the events in any way they choose to – and use different films genres – film noir, war film even the most bizarre musical I have ever seen – to show us what they did. This makes the whole movie rather surreal, and often very unsettling. The killers themselves play themselves, as well as their victims, and they use neighborhood children to play the kids of their victims, screaming and crying. The whole thing is surreal, disturbing and extremely effective.

Out of everyone Oppenheimer talks to, Anwar Congo starts to stand out. One of the gangsters who performed the killings, he starts out with the most swagger of anyone – bragging about what he did, showing how he came up with a way to make the killing less bloody. He seems completely at peace with everything he has done. But gradually, he lets the walls he has built around himself down. He confesses to nightmares he has had for years about the killings – which of course, they recreate – and when he has to play the victim in the “film noir” sequence, he breaks down – he cannot go through with it, because it feels too real to him. When questioned later by Oppenheimer, he says he now knows how his victims felt – but Oppenheimer challenges that idea. Congo knew he was going to be okay – his victims knew they were going to die.

The movie never loses sight of the fact that Congo is a murderer – by his own estimate, he killed at least 100 people. But it also never loses sight of the fact that Congo is a human being, not some kind of mythical monster. This will trouble some viewers – they want to hate Congo, see him not as a human, but as evil. But what Congo did was human – many, many people the world over have done what he has done. I was reminded by a moment in Werner Herzog’s TV documentary series On Death Row (Herzog, by the way, lends his name, alongside Errol Morris as an executive producer to this film) when one of the prosecutors says it is very easy for Herzog to “humanize” the murderer he is interviewing and Herzog replies “I do not humanize her. She is a human being, period.” And so is Congo. What he did was vile and evil, but Congo is a complicated human – and he is at the center of this fascinating documentary that deserves to be seen and debated, no matter what you make of it.

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Thursday, July 18, 2013

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: A Face in the Crowd (1957)

A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Directed by: Elia Kazan.
Written by: Budd Schulberg based on his short story.
Starring: Andy Griffith (Larry 'Lonesome' Rhodes), Patricia Neal (Marcia Jeffries), Anthony Franciosa (Joey DePalma), Walter Matthau (Mel Miller), Lee Remick (Betty Lou Fleckum), Percy Waram (Gen. Haynesworth), Paul McGrath (Macey), Rod Brasfield (Beanie), Marshall Neilan (Senator Worthington Fuller), Alexander Kirkland (Jim Collier), Charles Irving (Mr. Luffler), Howard Smith (J.B. Jeffries).

Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd is one of those movies that was years ahead of its time when it was made. In 1957, the film probably seemed a little far fetched and unbelievable, but flash forward 54 years, and A Face in the Crowd seems realistic in its cynicism about the intersection of fame and politics. Like Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky’s Network or Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, Kazan and writer Budd Schulberg saw something in the culture before most people had picked up on it, and delivered this perceptive, cynicial, funny tragedy of modern times. It is, quite simply, a masterpiece.

Andy Griffth, in his first major role, well before he became known to everyone as Sheriff Andy, plays Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, a small time drifter picked up and put in jail in a small backwater town on a charge of drunk and disorderly conduct. This is where Marcia Jefferies (Patricia Neal) finds him. Her uncle runs the local radio station, and she does a segment called “A Face in the Crowd”, where she lets normal people tell their stories. She decides to do one broadcast from the local jail, and in Rhodes, she finds an undiscovered star. He is funny, charming, witty, sings and plays the guitar and can tell a story with the best of them. She doesn’t just want to do a one time segment with him, but convinces him to host a daily radio show. It becomes a huge hit, and soon TV is calling. They want him to do a weekly show from Memphis. But Rhodes plays by his own rules, and tells it as he sees it to the audiences – mocking his mattress salesman sponsor and the inane ad copy they want him to read on the air. This would spell the end of your career – unless you’re as popular as Rhodes, in which case, it gets you a TV show in New York, with a National Audience. A few short months after being a penniless drifter, Rhodes in the biggest TV star in the country. And of course, he’s changed. He likes the fame the TV show brings him, the power and the money and especially the women. It doesn’t matter that his new sponsor is selling a pill that does absolutely nothing – he hocks it as a miracle pill, implying it is an aide in sexual prowess. He brings Marcia along, of course. She’s the brains behind everything, and he needs her to run it. And despite the fact that he’ll screw anything that moves, she still loves him. He uses this to his advantage – and even proposes to her. But not even the fact that on a trip he ends up marrying an 18 year old baton twirler (Lee Remnick, also making her film debut) can make Marcia stop loving him – and trying to protect him. Not even when he has completely sold out, and is not just hocking worthless pills, but a worthless Presidential candidate as well, can get her to give up on him.

A Face in the Crowd is a deeply cynical film. It presents Rhodesas little more than a country bumpkin, who grows too big for his britches. He doesn’t seem to know anything about politics, but that doesn’t matter. His sponsor wants Senator Worthington, an untelegenic, weak willed man to be President, so Rhodes uses his show to promote that. Rhodesdoesn’t care about Worthington’s ideas, and says no one else does either. All they need to see is Worthington acting like the rest of them – going hunting, talking in a down home country accent, and spouting off meaningless sound bites. Rhodes has no problem when his sponsor and Worthington tell him that the “workingman”, who Rhodes is supposed to represent, is too stupid to govern themselves, so they need a high powered, intellectual elite to guide them with a firm hand. Rhodeseven goes as far as to create another show, that is just him talking to “yokels” about his political ideas, who of course eat up every word he says as if it was the gospel.

The movie was ahead of its time in the way it tied together entertainment and politics. While many have compared someone like Glenn Beck to Peter Finch’s Howard Beale from Network, some have pointed out the similarities between people like Beck and Lonesome Rhodes. They talk like they’re one of the little guys, one of the underdogs, when really they are powerful and wealthy beyond measure – and they have a vested interest in maintaining that power. Elections stop being about who is most qualified, or who will do a better job or even who you agree with, but it becomes a mere popularity contest, based on how people come across on TV. It has often been said that in the age of TV, Franklin Roosevelt and his wheelchair never would have become President. Why? Not because of his politics, but because of his appearance. A Face in the Crowd was ahead of the curve in pointing all this out.

In a movie like this, a lot depends on the performances. Walter Matthau is in fine form as someone who sees through Rhodes from the beginning, but sticks around because he’s in love with Marcia. Lee Remnick is perfect as the doe-eyed ingénue turned sexpot, who loves fame as much as Rhodes does. Patricia Neal may never have been better than she is here as the woman who cannot help but be drawn to Rhodes, despite her better judgment, and how that all but destroys her. But most of all, there is Andy Griffth. It takes a scene or two to get over seeing Sheriff Andy in this role, but that does go away rather quickly. This is a loud, boisterous performance – not a whole lot of subtlety, but since Rhodes is not a subtle character, it works brilliantly. It is a big, bold, brash performance, and Griffth nails it.

If I have one problem with the movie, it’s the ending. It all seems a little too neat for me. I wish that the film had a darker, more cynical ending – one that didn’t insist on giving Rhodes his comeuppance, which strikes me as more wishful thinking that realistic. And the ending goes far too easy on Marcia, who afterall, created this monster, and even though she destroys him as well, gets away too cleanly for my tastes.

But that’s a minor flaw, in what is one of the great films from the 1950s. I have no idea why it took me so long to watch this film. It is a masterpiece in every way imaginable.

Movie Review: Bullet to the Head

Movie Review: Bullet to the Head

Bullet to the Head
Directed by: Walter Hill.
Written by: Alessandro Camon based on the graphic novel by Alexis Nolent and Colin Wilson.
Starring: Sylvester Stallone (James Bonomo), Sung Kang (Taylor Kwon), Sarah Shahi (Lisa), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Robert Nkomo Morel), Jason Momoa (Keegan), Christian Slater (Marcus Baptiste), Jon Seda (Louis Blanchard), Holt McCallany (Hank Greely), Brian Van Holt (Ronnie Earl), Weronika Rosati (Lola), Dane Rhodes (LT. Lebreton), Marcus Lyle Brown (Detective Towne).

It’s easy to see what drew director Walter Hill and star Sylvester Stallone together. Both are icons of the action genre, whose best days are decades in the past. With Bullet to the Head, the duo seems content to pretend it’s still the 1980s when this kind of muscle-bound, lunk headed action movie was popular – and according to Spike TV still is. As a throwback to the 1980s, Bullet to the Head is actually pretty good – there is a reason why Hill is widely regarded as master of the genre, and there is a reason why Stallone was once one of the biggest stars on the planet. But that’s all Bullet to the Head is – a throwback to an earlier era of action filmmaking that some of us have already had our fill of.

The movie stars Stallone as James Bonomo, an aging hitman, who along with his partner, is given the contract on ex-cop Hank Greely. They pull the job off like pros – except they don’t kill the prostitute he’s with – but when they go to meet their contact to collect the rest of their money, Bonomo’s partner is killed, and he is attacked by Keegan (Jason Momoa). Greely’s old partner from DC (Sung Kang) arrives to look into his murder (why? I have no idea, since he appears to not really have liked the guy), and quickly figures everything out, and also figures out the local cops aren’t overly interested in figuring things out. So he contacts Bonomo and offers to team up with him – that why, they can find out who set up their old partners together. Of course, it involves police corruption, a slimy lawyer (Christian Slater) and a crime kingpin (Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje) – and of course, Stallone’s hot daughter (Sarah Shahi) will get herself in trouble.

Had Bullet to the Head been a great throwback to the 1980s, it would have been a fun time at the movies. After all, some of those 1980s action movies are pretty great – at least as guilty pleasures. But Bullet to the Head isn’t really a great throwback – it plays more like one of those 1980s action movies that have long since been forgotten, that you come across at 2 o’clock in the morning on cable when you are battling insomnia. The film is largely forgettable and completely illogical – really can anyone explain anything that Sung Kang’s character does in the entirety of the movie.

The film is diverting. I was never really bored by it – Hill can still direct an action sequence, even if at one point he seems to be cribbing from David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises (with fewer penis’). You can almost see Hill smiling during the final showdown between Stallone and Momoa, which goes beyond ridiculous – and has fun doing it.

But ultimately, what Bullet to the Head shows is why these movies stopped being made in the first place. They just stopped being all that much fun.