3 Days To Kill

3 Days To Kill - Dir. McG (2014)

Luc Besson is partially responsible for Liam Neeson’s renaissance as an action hero. Now, the prolific French auteur has turned his sights on another aging screen idol in Kevin Costner. Besson serves as writer and producer on 3 Days to Kill while handing over directorial duties to the modern day Renny Harlin, McG.

Costner is CIA agent Ethan Renner, who just recently transferred to Paris to repair his estranged relationship with his ex-wife Christine (Connie Nielsen) and their daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld). An assignment goes tragically wrong when Renner and his team are tasked with taking down the Albino (Tomas Lemarquis), a lieutenant in an organization led by the mysterious Wolf (Richard Sammel). Several agents are killed, a hotel explodes, and the Albino escapes when Ethan collapses in the street.

Doctors alert Ethan that he has an inoperable brain tumor and only has a few months to live. He wishes to spend what little time he has left with reconnecting with Zoey, who isn’t too eager to be with her formerly absentee father. Ethan is soon given an offer he cannot refuse. Vivi (Amber Heard) has been sent by her CIA handlers to kill the Wolf and offers Ethan an experimental serum that can extend his life in exchange for his assistance.

The script by Besson and Adi Hasak is overstuffed with subplots and scattershot in tone. 3 Days to Kill floats between being an action flick, a comedy, and a maudlin drama. In addition to Ethan’s troubles with terrorists and a rebellious daughter, he’s also got a family of Malian squatters in his apartment leading to some cutesy scenes between Costner and a little boy asking for high fives. Amber Heard appears as the femme fatale with an all-too convenient panacea. There’s really nothing to her character aside from a blatantly salacious scene where Ethan meets Vivi while she receives a private show with a stripper. Hailee Steinfeld is good, but you wish she had followed up her big debut in True Grit with movies on a similar level. The action itself isn’t memorable at all and the villains are just generic Euro-trash.

Costner’s sheer presence is the one thing that binds the mish-mash of Besson’s disparate ideas together. He doesn’t possess the physically imposing stature of Neeson, but he conveys the same world weariness with the folksy charm seen in Field of Dreams. When Costner rescues his daughter from would-be rapists and carries her off in his arms, you half-expect the soundtrack to start blaring Whitney Houston.

Costner’s performance is enough to save 3 Days to Kill from being a complete dud, but it’s certainly not enough to recommend.

Rating: ** (*****)

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane - Dir. Jonathan Levine (2006)

When a film sits on the shelves for an inordinate amount of time before being unceremoniously released, there's a stigma attached to it. Maybe the movie just wasn't very good. That's not always the case. It took four years for Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret to see the light of day because of disagreements between the director and the studio over the final cut. The Cabin in the Woods, written and produced by Joss Whedon, was delayed for two years due to the financial trouble of MGM. Both pictures received strong reviews.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane was another horror film that underwent a long, arduous journey to the silver screen. It debuted at the Toronto Film Festival in 2006 where it was snatched up by Harvey Weinstein for $3.5 million, over four times the $750,000 budget. However, Harvey and brother Bob disagreed on how to market and distribute Mandy Lane. This, coupled with initially poor test screenings, led to the Weinstein Company to sell the rights to the German-based Senator Entertainment. Senator released the picture overseas, but the company folded before they could do the same in the U.S. As luck would have it, the rights to Mandy Lane made their way back into the hands of the Weinsteins thanks to their new distribution arm Radius-TWC.

Nobody really paid attention to Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) until she blossomed over summer break. At this point, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane may be a more appropriate title. The sweet-natured Mandy and her outsider friend Emmet (Michael Welch) are asked to a pool party by hunky alpha male Dylan (Adam Powell). When his advances fail, a drunken Dylan is convinced by Emmet to dive off the roof and into the pool to impress Mandy. His foolhardy gesture leads to his death.

Nine months later, Mandy has been embraced by the in-crowd while Emmet has been further ostracized, even by his former friend. Popular stoner Red (Aaron Himmelstein) invites Mandy to his parents' cattle ranch along with jocks Jake (Luke Grimes), Bird (Edwin Hodge), and pretty girls Chloe (Whitney Able) and Marlin (Melissa Price). Despite being under the watchful eye of handsome ranch hand Garth (Anson Mount), the kids consume plenty of alcohol and drugs. The fun stops when a psycho with a shotgun begins picking them off one by one.

It's easy to see why the Weinsteins had difficulty drawing up a marketing plan. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane isn't your typical hack and slash affair. The gorehounds won't find enough gratuitous violence to satisfy their cravings, yet the movie doesn't deconstruct the horror genre the way Cabin in the Woods or Scream did. Screenwriter Jacob Forman does seem to find a happy medium. Mandy Lane conforms to the standard tropes of teenage debauchery being punished by a mysterious killer. Still, it doesn't feel like a horror movie at first, aside from the eerie prologue. With its focus on the treacherous social dynamics of high school, Mandy Lane is clearly influenced by John Hughes as much as it is by Tobe Hooper or Wes Craven. The rural setting and grainy quality of the film recall Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Jonathan Levine, who would go on to direct The Wackness and 50/50, makes his directorial debut on Mandy Lane. Not bad for a guy who was working in a mail room at the time. Levine had greater success melding horror with teen romance in Warm Bodies, but clearly displayed a knack for capturing the sometimes painful experience of youth. His indie sensibilities shine through even in the soundtrack with an eclectic selection that includes the Go-Go's and 60's crooner Bobby Vinton.

Mandy Lane hinges entirely on Amber Heard, who has gone on to high-profile roles in Pineapple Express, The Rum Diary, and Machete Kills. Of course, Heard is gorgeous enough to you believe every guy in school wants to get into her pants. She also conveys a vulnerability that makes her easy prey.

If John Hughes made a horror movie and shot it in the style of Tobe Hooper with a dash of Terrence Malick, it might look a little like All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. It's about time this low-budget gem found an audience.

Rating: *** (*****)

Machete Kills

Machete Kills - Dir. Robert Rodriguez (2013)

Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino paid homage to the exploitation movies of their youth with the 2007 double feature Grindhouse. They had big plans to turn it into a franchise until the film died at the box office. Still, there was enough interest to spinoff Machete, a machete wielding badass who made his first appearance in one of Grindhouse's faux-trailers.

Described as ”FBI, CIA, and DEA all rolled into one mean burrito," Machete starred in a self-titled feature film bolstered by over-the-top action and an eclectic cast that included Robert DeNiro and Lindsay Lohan. Of course, Machete couldn't have worked without its star, Trejo, the craggily faced and tattooed character actor in his biggest role to date. Trejo returns in the sequel, Machete Kills, which remains faithful to its B-movie roots while upping the ante by adding a sci-fi spin. There's a lead villain cut from the same mold as Hugo Drax from Moonraker and plenty of Star Wars references.

A mission to foil an arms deal ends disastrously for Machete and ICE agent Sartana (Jessica Alba). Our hero is about to be hanged by a redneck sheriff (William Sadler) when he's pardoned by President Rathcock (Charlie Sheen, billed under his real name of Carlos Estevez). POTUS sends Machete into Mexico to track down a nuclear weapon that has fallen into the hands of a former cartel leader known as Mendez the Madman (Demián Bichir), so called because of his multiple personalities. However, the real mastermind is revealed to be billionaire industrialist Luther Voz (Mel Gibson), who has concocted a plan to engulf the entire world in nuclear war.

Also returning for the sequel are Michelle Rodriguez as the one-eyed revolutionary She and Tom Savini as hitman Osiris Amanpour. Joining them are Amber Heard as beauty queen/secret agent Miss San Antonio and Sofia Vergara as Desdemona, leader of a gang of deadly prostitutes. While the cast is as star-studded as its predecessor, most of the actors (Vanessa Hudgens, for example) appear in glorified cameos. One character, a master of disguise named The Chameleon, is simply there to justify a string of gonzo, guest appearances by Walt Goggins, Lady Gaga, and Cuba Gooding Jr. Only a few get to make any real impression, such as Sheen who has fun playing into his tabloid persona as a boozehound and horndog. Bichir and Gibson (in his first turn as a bad guy) give the best performances as both actors straddle the line between cartoonish villainy and honest-to-goodness gravitas. Bichir, in particular, brings some surprisingly soulful moments to Machete Kills.

Rodriguez's flair for action isn't fully on display here. Machete Kills manages a couple of decent set pieces, usually involving Machete versus Chilean martial arts star Marko Zaror. Unfortunately, much of the film is repetitive with Rodriguez relying one too many times on his hero killing henchmen by throwing them into helicopter blades. Sofia Vergara, who plays it to the hilt, packs a high caliber brassier as well as the crotch gun from Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn. Even a catfight between Amber Heard and Michelle Rodriguez comes off dull.

Machete Kills opens with another faux-trailer for a third picture, Machete Kills Again…in Space, that offers more thrills than the actual movie that followed. Maybe it's time to say, "Adios," to this franchise.

Rating: ** (*****)

Drive Angry

Drive Angry 3D - Dir. Patrick Lussier (2011)

How have we been subjected to two Nicolas Cage movies when it's only March? Drive Angry is exactly what it advertises, Nic Cage is angry and he drives. He drives angry.

Cage sits behind the wheel as John Milton. Yeah, because I wouldn't have taken this movie seriously unless they made a Paradise Lost reference. Anyways, Milton literally escapes from Hell to hunt down Jonah King (Billy Burke), a cult leader who murdered Milton's daughter and plans to sacrifice her baby for a satanic ritual. Milton blows bad guys away with his shotgun and is completely irresistible to every woman he comes across. Who could resist that luxurious head of greasy, stringy blonde hair? Milton receives assistance from a feisty waitress named Piper (Amber Heard), who drives a '69 Dodge Charger. Dogging their trail is The Accountant (William Fichtner), a demonic emissary, who is half-Terminator and half-Anton Chigurh. He cuts a swath of destruction across the south as he attempts to retrieve the errant Milton. David Morse also has a brief role as a former associate of Milton's by the name of Webster. I'm guessing his first name was Daniel, as in the Devil and…

Drive Angry is the latest film to try and recapture the exploitation magic of low-budget 70's grindhouse cinema, which has become so fashionable as of late. Unfortunately, it lacks the inventiveness of Machete and the hilarity of Black Dynamite. There is plenty of blood, bullets, and boobs to be found, but there's nothing particularly exciting or original about the action sequences. In a rip-off of Shoot 'Em Up, Cage kills a horde of henchmen while simultaneously banging a buxom blond. Later, the Accountant plows through a police blockade in a tanker truck while listening to "That's the Way (I Like It)." While shot in 3D, Drive Angry doesn't benefit a lick from the process with very little difference between it and conversion jobs. The 3D effects amount to nothing more than bullets and random debris flying at the screen.

When the writers aren't peppering in weak literary references to prove that they passed high school English, they’re concocting ludicrous dialogue like, "Hell is already walking the Earth," and Amber Heard's classic, "Ah'm gonna tell everyone what ah caught you doin' with mah pink dildo."

Speaking of whom, Heard's hotness is the best thing going on in Drive Angry. Director Patrick Lussier (who also helmed the atrocious My Bloody Valentine 3D) knows enough to give the male demographics a Megan Fox shot of Amber Heard with the young starlet dressed in cut-off denim shorts and bent over the hood of a car. The second best thing in the movie is William Fitchner, who resembles a younger Christopher Walken, gives a scene chewing performance as the Accountant. On the other hand, Cage is surprisingly restrained and this is one instance when you wish the cuffs were taken off. Every once in a while you see a gleam in his eyes as if Cage were about to go batshit bonkers. An unleashed Cage can be a sight to behold as evidenced in Wicker Man and Bad Lieutenant. Alas, he's just plain dull and uncharismatic.

Drive Angry is clearly marketed towards muscle car driving, meat eating, red blooded American males. Too bad for Summit Entertainment, they avoided it in droves. Drive Angry has gone down as the lowest grossing 3D movie given a wide release. The film all but disappeared from theaters a week after opening, pushed off 3D screens by an even bigger box office bomb in Disney's Mars Needs Moms.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

And Soon the Darkness

And Soon the Darkness - Dir. Marcos Efron (2010)

No movie is safe from the Hollywood remake machine. It doesn't matter if it's a renowned classic or a little-known cult film, it will be dusted off and redone for an audience too young to know about the original. This is the case with And Soon the Darkness, a remake of a British thriller from 1970 about a pair of young English ingénues terrorized in the French countryside. In his first feature film, director Marcos Efron (with co-writer Jennifer Derwingson) transplant the tale to South America and cast two of Hollywood's rising starlets, Amber Heard (Pineapple Express, Zombieland) and Odette Yustman (Cloverfield, You Again).

Heard and Yustman play BFFs, Stephanie and Ellie, two comely American girls on a cycling trip through Argentina. Stephanie and Ellie have split off from the rest of the tour group to adventure on their own. They arrive in a sleepy little village in the middle of nowhere. It seems peaceful enough, but appearances can be deceiving. The denizens walk around on eggshells while some eye the newcomers with suspicion. The fact that there are pictures of a missing girl plastered around town should be a red flag. However, our heroines don't notice anything is amiss. They get dolled up and hit the local bar for a night of drinks.

While Stephanie is the more responsible of the two, Ellie is the party girl. She flirts with the guys using what little Spanish she knows, downs shots, and sings along to "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls. After a few too many drinks, the girls oversleep and miss the morning's bus out of town. What else is a pair of nubile gals to do then slip into their bikinis and sunbathe? Stephanie gets into an argument with Ellie over boyfriend troubles and storms off. When she heads back to apologize, Ellie is gone, leaving behind her cell phone. Stephanie tries to report her friend's disappearance to the local policeman (Cesar Vianco) who quickly dismisses the seriousness of the situation. Stephanie finds sympathetic help in Michael (Karl Urban), an American expatriate, who has lost someone too.

And Soon the Darkness presents nothing that hasn't been seen before, especially in the 'pretty American girls get abducted and tortured by evil foreigners' subgenre. Marcos Efron should at least be commended for not going the torture porn route and turning his film into another Hostel knock-off. Those of you who are gorehounds or just looking for a bit of T&A may be disappointing. The film does contain some violence, but nothing grotesque and there's no nudity whatsoever. There is a nice close-up of Yustman's posterior. Darkness is a competently made thriller with Efron lulling the audience (and his protagonists) into a false sense of security with gorgeous shots of the Argentinean landscape. The film's climax is exciting though not enough to bring you to the edge of your seat.

One of the movie's main weaknesses is the interminable amount of screen time that must be sat through before the action finally kicks in. This is the obligatory section of the movie where we are forced to get to know everyone. The characters are incredibly thin and it hardly helps that their conversations are vain and uninteresting. The lead actresses aren't called upon to do anything other than look pretty and scared. Karl Urban's appearance is a head scratcher. His role is so miniscule and meaningless you'll wonder why he even bothered to show up, unless it was for a free vacation. The same goes for Academy Award nominee Adriana Barraza (Babel) as the owner of the town's one and only hotel.

And Soon the Darkness might be considered perfectly acceptable cinema. It's a film that isn't overly stylish or overly indulgent. It isn't particularly inventive or captivating either. And Soon the Darkness offers only two hot looking leads and a story filled with predictable twists and cardboard characters.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Zombieland

Zombieland - Dir. Ruben Fleischer (2009)


I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with a movie quicker than I have with Zombieland. From the opening prologue to the fantastic opening credits (set to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls”), Zombieland is a thrilling blend of action, comedy, and horror that fully takes advantage of pop culture’s current love affair with zombies.

From Adventureland to Zombieland, Jesse Eisenberg does his standard nerdy, Michael Cera-lite act as Columbus who survived the zombie apocalypse because he was a shut-in who avoided human contact. He has developed a set of rules that have helped him avoid becoming zombie food, rules that include good cardio conditioning and always remembering to check the back seat. He meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a gung-ho cowboy who has turned zombie killing into an art form. While Columbus wants to head home to check on his family, Tallahassee is on an eternal hunt for the last box of Twinkies. Along the way, the two of them run into a pair of con artist sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), on their way to California. Oh, nobody gives out their real names because it makes it easier to put a bullet in their head when they become zombiefied.

The highlight of Zombieland is a trip to Hollywood where the gang run into a certain celebrity in one of the funniest cameos in recent memory.

Does Zombieland add any new elements to the zombie genre that we haven’t seen before? No, not really, though it does play around with the genre much like Scream did with the slasher flick. Zombieland isn’t about zombies as a metaphor for government corruption, consumerism or sexual diseases, it’s just a fun popcorn film. This is the kind of movie where you can sit back and just be entertained. Woody Harrellson is absolutely perfect as the shit-kicking cowboy and Abigail Breslin definitely puts Little Miss Sunshine to rest. My only quibble with Zombieland would be its brief 88 minute length. Usually I wish that the movie had ten more minutes to devote to fleshing out the characters or beefing up the plot, instead I wish Zombieland had ten more minutes of pure zombie kills.

Rating: *** ½