Parker

Parker - Dir. Taylor Hackford

"I don't steal from people who can't afford it and I don't hurt people that don't deserve it."

The late-Donald E. Westlake is best known for a series of crime novels starring a highly skilled crook named Parker, each penned under the pseudonym of Richard Stark. The first of those books, The Hunter, was famously adapted as Point Blank starring Lee Marvin, a fine example of the classic revenge film. That same book was translated with less success as Payback with Mel Gibson. Neither of those movies featured Parker per se because Westlake wouldn’t allow producers to call him by that name unless they intended to make the whole series. Thus, Marvin became Walker while Gibson was called Porter. Another excellent adaptation was The Outfit starring Robert Duvall and directed by John Flynn, who also helmed Rolling Thunder, one of the best revenge films of the 70's. Following Westlake's death, his wife, Abby, and close friend, producer Les Alexander, hoped to turn the Parker series into the franchise Westlake had envisioned.

Simply titled Parker, this new film is based on Flashfire, one of Westlake's later novels, which was published in 2000. This time Parker (Jason Statham) hooks up with a quartet of crooks for a heist at the Ohio State Fair. Parker's new cohorts are headed up by Melander (Michael Chiklis) and include Carlson (Wendell Pierce), Ross (Clifton Collins Jr.), and Hardwicke (Micah A. Hauptman), a royal screw-up who only has a spot because his uncle is a big time mobster in Chicago. The gang makes off with a million dollars and double-cross Parker in order to use the score to fund their next caper. The rest of the story will sound familiar to Parker fans as their hero is shot and left for dead only to survive, and then go on the hunt for revenge.

Parker tracks his former colleagues to Palm Beach, Florida where they plan to steal $75 million in jewelry from an auction house. He receives unlikely aid from Leslie Rogers (Jennifer Lopez), a down-on-her-luck real estate agent who is divorced, deep in debt, and lives with her overbearing mother (Patti LuPone). Nick Nolte looks like he's about to keel over at any time in his small role as Parker's mentor.

Statham is an old hand when it comes to playing these anti-heroes who adhere to their own moral codes as exemplified in The Transporter and The Mechanic. In fact, swap a few details here and there and Parker could have been any number of previous Statham vehicles. Nothing about the screenplay from John McLaughlin (Hitchcock) feels particularly unique though Statham is charismatic enough to keep you entertained even when he's putting on the worst Southern accent ever. Yes, Parker goes undercover as an oil tycoon from San Antonio with a drawl that would fool no one. Even Statham seems to believe the accent is bad enough that he quits doing it midstream.

Jennifer Lopez's character is a far cry from the tough and resourceful Karen Sisco in Out of Sight. She's shoehorned into the plot almost as awkwardly as some of the flashback sequences. Leslie's only reason for existing is to act as damsel in distress and allow horndogs to ogle Lopez when she strips down to her bra and panties. She's not a love interest for Parker since he already has one in Claire (Emma Booth), the dutiful girlfriend who worries while still patching up his gunshot wounds. Meanwhile, Leslie's mother walks around the house with her foo foo dog demanding the TV be constantly turned to her soap operas. She's so broadly sketched that you half-expect Broadway legend Patti LuPone to appear in a muumuu with curlers in her hair.

Parker is the first genre effort from Taylor Hackford, known more for prestige dramas such as An Officer and a Gentleman and Ray. Hackford's action sequences aren't terrible, but there's no panache to the point that any work-for-hire director like Simon West or Renny Harlin could have been behind the camera.

In the end, Parker is indistinguishable from the rest of the middling early year releases. It's a shame that Westlake's pulpy crime fiction has been diluted into yet another run-of-the-mill Jason Statham actioner. If you want to see Westlake's works translated well, check out the graphic novels by Darwyn Cooke.

Rating: ** (*****)

End of Watch

End of Watch - Dir. David Ayer (2012)

You can trace the origins of the found footage genre back to the controversial horror film Cannibal Holocaust. However, it was The Blair Witch Project that really brought it to the forefront for modern audiences. With camera technology readily accessible along with the proliferation of the internet and viral videos, found footage has become more relevant today. Most importantly, they are relatively cheap to make. Recent years have seen a glut of found footage horror films that include The Devil Inside, The Last Exorcism, The Chernobyl Diaries, and Apollo 18. None of them were very well received though movie-goers liked REC and Paranormal Activity enough to warrant multiple sequels.

The subgenre was in danger of growing stale, but a few filmmakers ventured to apply found footage aesthetics to other genres. Project X was a raunchy teen comedy shot documentary style that was critically reviled, but wildly successful at the box office. Chronicle was a unique take on the superhero origin story from director Josh Trank, who wound up scoring the job of helming the Fantastic Four reboot for Fox.

This brings us to End of Watch, a cop drama set in the inner city of Los Angeles from writer/director David Ayer, who has made a career of gritty crime flicks set in L.A. He wrote Training Day, Dark Blue, and S.W.A.T., then went on to direct Harsh Times and Street Kings. Ayer does his best work with End of Watch, which is a more positive look at the LAPD than his earlier pictures. It follows two hotshot LAPD officers named Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Miguel Zavala (Michael Pena). Taylor is a former Marine who is earning his law degree on the side. As part of his course work, he is filming a documentary about his life as a police officer. This includes using tiny cameras pinned to his lapel and his partner's. Whereas Zavala is a family man, Taylor is happily single though he may have finally met "the one" in the perky Anna Kendrick.

End of Watch opens with a wild pursuit recorded by a dashboard camera that ends in a justified shooting. From there, we watch as Taylor and Zavala rescue kids from a burning house and bust a perpetrator carrying a ton of cash and a jewel encrusted AK-47. Our protagonists even earn the respect of a gang member named Tre (Cle Sloan) after he gets into a brawl with Zavala. After discovering a house full of rotting body parts, Taylor and Zavala unwittingly earn the wrath of a ruthless Mexican drug cartel pushing its way into Los Angeles.

End of Watch doesn't stay firmly within the realm of found footage. While there are the usual shaky cam shots, many of the scenes are shot and edited conventionally. Still, End of Watch succeeds in placing the audience intimately alongside the officers. It's as if we were right there for the ride. Ayer's willingness to shoot tightly and closely gives the action sequences an immediacy and tension not found in movies with larger budgets. Ayer also throws in some unique shots such as one in which a camera has been mounted on Taylor's shotgun barrel.

Shootouts are all well and good, but Ayer ensures that we care about the characters with the camaraderie of Taylor and Zavala at the forefront. Gyllenhaal and Pena give strong performances and their banter is a highlight. Though the focus is on them, their relationships with their families and fellow cops aren't short changed. Taylor and Zavala have their run-ins with an embittered beat cop (David Harbour) and a pair of female officers (Cody Horn & America Ferrera) who aren't impressed by their cocky attitudes.

End of Watch falters when it shifts focus from Taylor and Zavala to the Latino gangbangers gunning for them. In the YouTube era, it makes sense that the criminals would be bold enough to record their illegal activities. Still, their scenes are less interesting because they are portrayed in stereotypical and over-the-top manner.

End of Watch is a gripping police drama that rises above genre conventions and the limitations of found footage.

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

Gangster Squad

Gangster Squad - Dir. Ruben Fleischer (2013)

In its heyday, Universal Studios was known for classic monster films like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man. On the other hand, Warner Brothers was renowned for violent gangster flicks that turned actors such as James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson into screen legends. Gangster Squad will hardly be ranked alongside Public Enemy, Little Caesar, or the original Scarface.

Gangster Squad is loosely based on a series of articles published by the L.A. Times and written by Paul Lieberman. "Tales from the Gangster Squad" was about a covert unit of the LAPD that waged war against organized crime. One of their primary targets was Mickey Cohen, a Jewish prizefighter who arrived on the west coast as hired muscle for Bugsy Siegel. The seedy underworld of Hollywood past was previously brought to life in L.A. Confidential. Indeed, Gangster Squad borrows heavily from the works of James Ellroy and The Untouchables.

Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) has brutally risen through the criminal underworld to control all of the drugs, gambling, and prostitution in Los Angeles. Corruption throughout the LAPD and local government has enabled Cohen's operations. The embattled Chief of Police Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) tasks Sgt. John O'Mara (Josh Brolin), a decorated WWII veteran, with assembling his own task force to combat Cohen. They are given carte blanche to dismantle Cohen's empire without the need for warrants or arrests. The roster for O'Mara's squad includes: Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), a suave ladies' man; Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie), a black beat cop with a mastery of the switchblade; surveillance expert Conwell Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi); Max Kennard (Robert Patrick), a mustachioed gunslinger; and earnest rookie Navidad Ramirez (Michael Pena). Things are complicated when Wooters romances Cohen's girlfriend and etiquette tutor, Grace Faraday (Emma Stone).

Gangster Squad is a visually stunning picture. Production designer Maher Ahmad has faithfully recreated a bygone era of Los Angeles full of fedoras, trenchcoats, sporty roadsters, and Tommy guns. It's all exquisitely lit with an accentuated color palette thanks to cinematographer Dion Beebe. Director Ruben Fleischer made a stylish debut with Zombieland and continues his trend for energetic action sequences with plenty of shootouts, explosions, chaotic brawls, and a car chase where potato masher grenades are lobbed about. One of the best staged scenes involves the squad breaking into Cohen's nightclub to burn his dirty money while Carmen Miranda sings on stage. One scene that didn't make the cut featured gangsters opening fire on a packed audience inside Grauman's Chinese Theater. The movie was delayed from its original September release following the tragedy in Aurora and the sequence was replaced with a shootout in Chinatown, which was no less bloody. Make no mistake; Gangster Squad is a violent film. Bodies are riddled with bullets, a trio of goons is burned alive, innocent bystanders routinely die, and one man is ripped in half after being tied to two cars.

Fleischer isn't afraid to reference other films in an obvious manner. The movie opens with Penn's Cohen quoting Bela Lugosi in Dracula. Later, a character is shot and falls face first into a swimming pool ala Sunset Boulevard. Fleischer even throws in a staircase gunfight during the climax as a nod to The Untouchables recreation of the Odessa Steps from Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Anthony Mackie flings his knife in a similar fashion to James Coburn in The Magnificent Seven. While Untouchables and Magnificent Seven were certainly an influence, there's also a heavy dose of Dick Tracy throughout Gangster Squad. Josh Brolin's square-jawed hero looks an awful lot like Chester Gould's iconic detective with the humorless stoicism of Joe Friday from Dragnet. Then, there's Sean Penn who bears no resemblance to the real Cohen and appears to have stepped right out of a comic strip. The make-up work turns him into a caricature and Penn plays it accordingly. He's a snarling beast chewing through every scene. Penn gets his Cagney moment when he shouts, "Here comes Santy Claus," while latching onto a Tommy gun during a Christmas shootout.

The hammy acting and relentless violence distracts from the fact that the hackneyed plot. The screenplay by Will Beall, a former LAPD officer, is rife with clichés and one-dimensional characters. Brolin's O'Mara is one of the worst leaders in cinematic history. As Wooters states, "You're a bull in a China shop, Sarge, but we follow you in anyways." That doesn't say much for O'Mara or his charges. He blindly leaps into the fray and can definitely be blamed for much of the film's collateral damage. In a nice twist, it is O'Mara's wife (Mireille Enos) who selects the members of his squad though she's never given more to do other than worry about her husband. The squad themselves aren't given any distinct personalities. Meanwhile, Gosling is so laidback cool that it almost borders on self-parody, especially when he's effortlessly flicking his Zippo lighter. He has some great scenes with Emma Stone who might as well be Jessica Rabbit's younger, slinkier sister.

Gangster Squad is a pure exercise in style over substance. This is L.A. Confidential dumbed down and turned into an R-rated, live-action cartoon.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

Killing Them Softly

Killing Them Softly - Dir. Andrew Dominik (2012)

"You ever kill anyone? They get touchy-feely, emotional, a lot of fuss. They either plead or beg. They call for their mothers. I like to kill 'em softly…from a distance."

As the old saying goes, "Never judge a book by its cover." So it goes with Killing Them Softly, a film seemingly depicted by the trailers as an action-packed crime thriller. Comparing it to a John Woo movie, would be like comparing Drive to The Fast and the Furious. Killing Them Softly is arthouse noir masquerading as typical multiplex fare.

Killing Them Softly is written and directed by Andrew Dominik whose previous film was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a hauntingly beautiful picture that had more in common with Terrence Malick than the average shoot 'em up Western. Dominik's latest work is based on the 1974 novel, Cogan's Trade, by George V. Higgins, who stands alongside Dennis Lehane as one of the preeminent authors of Boston crime fiction. The only other book by Higgins that has been translated to cinema is The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a cult classic of gritty 70's cinema with Robert Mitchum perfectly cast in the title role of a low-level crook forced to turn informant to avoid prison.

The stylish dialogue remains largely intact, but Dominik has moved the story to a post-Katrina New Orleans in 2008. Obama, Bush, and John McCain serve as a Greek chorus as excerpts of their speeches about the financial collapse, the massive bailouts, and the murky future of the country play throughout the movie. Dominik sets the stage with a jarring opening as audio of then-Senator Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention is intercut with distorted feedback. A lone figure walks through the desolate streets as litter floats around him. The final images are side-by-side billboards of the presidential candidates and their photogenic smiles as they survey the ruined kingdom they hope will be their prize. It's a prologue that feels ripped out of an experimental film.

From there, Killing Them Softly cuts to a more conventional scene as Johnny Amato aka Squirrel (Vincent Curatola) hires two crooks, Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and his drug-addled friend Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), to knock over a high-stakes poker game for mobsters. The clandestine games are run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), who actually robbed one of his games years ago. No one could prove he did it though he later drunkenly bragged about pulling the job, yet his bosses still gave him a pass. Johnny knows that if the game is robbed again, it will be Markie who falls immediately under suspicion. This is where Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) enters the story (after almost half an hour) in grand fashion, snorting cigarette smoke and driving a classic town car to the tune of "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash. Cogan is hired to track down the thieves and deal with them in his own indomitable manner.

Dominik incessantly hammers home the idea that the entire film is a parable for the economic crisis and that there is little difference between the financial sector and organized crime. The heads of the mafia are never seen and only represented by Richard Jenkins as a middle management suit exasperated by the corporate structure he's entrenched in. Only in this corporate structure could Trattman be allowed to steal from his own company and be placed in a position where he could do so again. Cogan himself is surrounded by incompetent underlings and indecisive superiors. They move about in a world where everyone makes their money by gambling, stealing, and scamming from one another. It's a world where loyalty is an inconvenience when it comes to saving your own ass. It's a thoroughly masculine world too with the only female character in the movie being a prostitute.

Then, there's New York Mickey (James Gandolfini) who could be seen as a thinly veiled representation of the SEC or any other ineffectual watchdog committee. Mickey is a renowned enforcer brought in by Cogan to assist in the murder of Johnny Amato. Much to Cogan's dismay, Mickey has become a bitter shell of his former self. Mickey drowns his self-pity with booze and hookers as he bemoans his shattered marriage and an impending prison sentence.

Buried underneath the ham-fisted political rhetoric is a compelling film yearning to breathe. The dialogue crackles and the performances are strong. Pitt moves across the screen with an effortless swagger wrapped in a black leather coat. The scenes he shares with Gandolfini are some of the best in the movie though they could have been excised entirely with no impact to the rest of the narrative. They exist as if they were separate one-act plays written by David Mamet. Gandolfini initially turned the part down due to its similarities to Tony Soprano. Gandolfini isn't the only one typecast as a gangster, there's also Ray Liotta and Vincent Curatola, another Sopranos alum. You can easily see Soprano, Henry Hill, and Johnny Sack slowly turning into these pathetic wrecks. However, their roles feel short changed, not surprising since Dominik edited the picture from an early two and a half hour cut to 97 minutes. One supporting standout is Ben Mendelsohn, an Aussie actor used to portraying scumbags. He recently popped up as a ruthless executive in The Dark Knight Rises, but first gained notice as the psychotic Pope in Animal Kingdom. As Russell, Mendelsohn is the definition of sleazy so much so you'll want to take a shower after watching him. He's constantly caked in a layer of sweat and dresses like a disheveled hobo. Sam Shepard appears in one scene as an enforcer named Dillon, who was superbly played by Peter Boyle in the aforementioned Friends of Eddie Coyle.

Anyone who has seen Assassination of Jesse James knows Dominik is capable of crafting gorgeous imagery. Killing Them Softly is no exception as Dominik stages sequences that are both poetic and violent. There's a brutal beatdown soaked in rain, blood, and vomit. Later, a shooting occurs in slow motion as a bullet exits a man's skull as beads of water and broken glass swim in a sea of crimson red. When Russell does heroin, Dominik uses a trippy first person perspective reminiscent of Gaspar Noé's interminable Enter the Void. The soundtrack selection is just as on the nose as Dominik's message with "Heroin" by Velvet Underground scoring the scene and Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)" over the end credits.

"I'm living in America and in America you're on your own. America's not a country, it's a business. Now fuckin' pay me."

That final line, delivered by Pitt as a cynical response to Obama's hopeful inaugural address, encapsulates Dominik's themes more succinctly than the heavy handed method he employs. It may be amusing to imagine a criminal underworld that subsists solely on a steady stream of C-SPAN and NPR, Killing Them Softly would have been better served with the same distanced approach used by its protagonist.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

The Son of No One

The Son of No One - Dir. Dito Montiel (2011)

Good actors do bad movies all the time. Such is the case with The Son of No One, a gritty crime drama with an A-list cast and a D-list story. What possessed them to take part in such a muddled mess? It's likely that on paper the film was an intriguing challenge, but the final product is decidedly not.

The Son of No One was written and directed by Dito Montiel, a former male model and hardcore punk musician. Montiel made his directorial debut with A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which starred Channing Tatum, Robert Downey Jr., and Shia Labeouf and was based on his memoirs about growing up in Astoria, Queens. Montiel reunited with Tatum for his second feature, Fighting, about, what else, underground fighting.

Montiel and Tatum are back together again as the director returns to his old stomping grounds of Queens. The film opens in 1986 with a young boy named Jonathan "Milk" White (Jake Cherry), who lives in the Queensboro projects with his grandmother. He is cowering in fear in the bathroom of his best friend Vinnie (Brian Gilbert) as a crazed junkie attempts to break down the door. Holding a gun in his hand, Jonathan opens fire and kills the intruder. The kid's late father was a police officer and his former partner, Det. Charles Stanford (Al Pacino), sweeps the whole thing under the rug.

Flash forward to 2002 and Jonathan is now a beat cop living in Staten Island with a wife (Katie Holmes) and a daughter, who suffers from seizures. Jonathan is transferred to Queens just as a local reporter, Loren Bridges (Juliette Binoche), begins receiving anonymous letters claiming the NYPD covered up two murders in the projects. Specifically, these letters name Det. Stanford and Jonathan's new commanding officer Captain Mathers (Ray Liotta).

Huh? Two murders? Yes, Jonathan White proves to be the unluckiest boy in the world, chalks up another accidental kill when a neighboring scumbag kicks his scruffy little dog to death. This ridiculous scene sums up exactly how Montiel piles on the melodrama in The Son of No One. Since half the story is set in 2002, the specter of 9/11 is ever present. Montiel imbues a heavy handed message that corruption still existed even at a time when the NYPD was still riding the wave of heroic patriotism. The frequency in which the plot bounces back and forth from '86 to '02 is both confusing and infuriating.

The past isn't any better than the future. It's not enough for Jonathan to murder one person before he even hits puberty. This poor boy has to kill two. And was there any reason to cover up the original death? It was a clear cut case of self-defense though you could argue Stanford didn't want to drag little Jonathan into a court case. It just adds to the overall feeling that not a lot of thought was put into the story. Meanwhile, Jonathan's old BFF, Vinnie, also suffers from an overabundance of soap opera setbacks. Not only was he traumatized by witnessing the murders, he was also molested by his mother's boyfriend and spent time in an institution. He's also played as an adult by Tracy Morgan, who gives it his all in a rare dramatic turn, but is simply unable to shed his outrageous comedic persona. His performance here immediately brings to mind the 30 Rock story arc where Tracy Jordan attempts to go serious by winning an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony).

Tatum, who sports a stereotypical cop's mustache, is an underrated comedic actor, but his dramatic chops leave much to be desired. He's too bland and wooden to make much of a mark. As for the rest of the cast, they're good, particularly James Ransone as Jonathan's fiery partner and Juliette Binoche, whose French accent stands out against a sea of New York/Italian inflections. Ray Liotta pretty much plays Ray Liotta while Katie Holmes gets nothing to do, except scream at her husband, "What's happening? Why won't you tell me the truth?" Then, there's Al Pacino, who is surprisingly restrained. Sorry, but subdued Pacino isn't nearly as much fun as bug-eyed and crazy Pacino.

The Son of No One premiered at Sundance in 2011, but received a lot of negative buzz. It's only now being released on DVD and Blu-ray from Anchor Bay. I can't think of a good reason to track this movie down unless you have to see everything Channing Tatum and Al Pacino are in.

Rating: * (*****)

Texas Killing Fields

Texas Killing Fields - Dir. Ami Canaan Mann (2011)

Texas Killing Fields was inspired by the unsolved disappearances and murders of over thirty young women along a lonely stretch of highway between Galveston and Houston, Texas. Of particular note is an abandoned oil field outside the small town of League City, colloquially known as "the Killing Fields," where four of the bodies have been found. These crimes have dated as far back as the 1970's.

Tough guys Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Sam Worthington are Brian Heigh and Mike Souder, two gruff detectives patrolling Texas City, a rural burg surrounded by desolate bayous and rusty oil derricks. Heigh is a weary veteran, who has moved from New York with his wife (Annabeth Gish) due to unspecified reasons. Souder is a hothead and often clashes with his partner.

Heigh also looks after Little Anne Sigler (Chloe Grace Moretz), a girl who is usually found wandering the streets because her drug addicted mother doesn't want her around while she's entertaining male company.

The detectives are investigating the murder of a young prostitute and Souder believes it's an open and shut case against her accused pimp. Heigh isn't so sure, especially when the mutilated body of a missing woman is discovered in the Fields by Souder's ex-wife, Det. Pam Stall (Jessica Chastain). Souder believes they shouldn't get involved as the Fields are outside their jurisdiction, but Heigh feels differently.

Texas Killing Fields was written by Don Ferrarone, a former DEA agent who has worked as a technical advisor on films like Man on Fire and Miami Vice. Speaking of which, Michael Mann served as producer while his daughter, Ami Canaan Mann directed. Her style certainly shares similarities with her father judging by the way she composes a shootout and car chase. The tone of the film is closest to Manhunter, Michael Mann's oft-forgotten adaptation of an early Hannibal Lecter novel. Don't expect Texas Killing Fields to follow in the relentlessly dark footsteps of Seven or Silence of the Lambs.

The film had been in development hell for a while with Danny Boyle once attached as director. Boyle once stated that the script was so dark, it might never be made. It's quite clear that many concessions were made to make the final product more palpable to mainstream audiences. Instead of an unsettling thriller, Texas Killing Fields is more of a dreary procedural littered with half-finished subplots. Much like Seven, the story veers towards a pessimistic view that the bad guy can get away and that darkness can consume even the best of us. Yet, these themes are undone by a tacked on happy ending.

Luckily the cast is talented enough to elevate the material slightly above mediocre levels. With his deep, gravelly voice, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was an excellent choice to play the burdened Brian Heigh. Sam Worthington doesn't fare as well. The Australian-born actor sometimes has a difficult time pulling off an American accent; a Southern one was too much to ask. His speech is all over the map. Then, there's the ubiquitous Jessica Chastain, who had hear breakout year in 2011. She won rave reviews for her roles in The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, and The Help. However, her work here and in The Debt was overlooked, likely because both films were rather subpar. Still, she's the best thing in either picture. Also present in Fields is Chloe Moretz in a role more subdued than her turns in Let Me In and Kick-Ass. She has the air of a young Jodie Foster here and it's a shame she wasn't given more to do as Little Anne served as the heart of the movie.

Despite an excellent cast and an intriguing true crime premise, Texas Killing Fields can't muster up the suspense of an average episode of CSI.

Rating: ** (*****)

Catch .44

Catch .44 - Dir. Aaron Harvey (2011)

Catch .44 is proudly advertised as a film done in "the tradition of The Usual Suspects and Pulp Fiction." These were two of the most critically acclaimed films to come out of the mid-90's. The only thing Catch .44 has in common with them is that it feels like a movie that might have been released over fifteen years ago after Quentin Tarantino hit it big and a whole slew of wannabe filmmakers began aping his approach with stylish crime films about cool gangsters spewing hip dialogue.

Catch .44 begins with a trio of bad girls named Tes (Malin Akerman), Dawn (Deborah Ann Woll from True Blood), and Kara (Nikki Reed from the other vampire saga, Twilight) having a conversation in a diner in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana. The gals are waiting for their boss Mel (Bruce Willis), who wants them to stick up a drug shipment being run by a rival gangster. When he doesn't show up at the specified time, they draw guns and initiate a shootout. The story flashes back to how our heroines got to the diner as well as delving into the background of their leader Tes. Meanwhile, an odd hitman named Ronny (Forest Whitaker) has killed a local deputy, swiped his uniform, and is making his way to the diner.

As it turns out, Tes used to be a waitress at a sleazy strip club where she earned extra cash by swiping the wallets of the clientele. She gains the attentions of Mel, the club's owner, who puts her to work in some vague capacity. How she moves from pickpocket to gun-toting enforcer is never really explained. Instead, the narrative sprinkles in these flashbacks while showing more and more of the shootout, which culminates in an extended and poorly staged Mexican standoff.

The cast also included Brad Dourif as the town sheriff, Shea Wigham as the cook, and Smallville's Michael Rosenbaum as an obnoxious club patron.

Catch .44 doesn't get off to a strong start with Malin Akerman pontificating about faking it and women trying to live in "man land." The scene is a pretty blatant ripoff of the diner scenes from Reservoir Dogs and Death Proof. At least, Tarantino was clever enough to write dialogue about Madonna or some obscure 1970's television show. First-time writer/director Aaron Harvey cannot come up with anything more interesting than lines about leaving the toilet seat up. The QT imitation continues as Harvey introduces his main characters via freeze frame and bold yellow titles lifted right out of Kill Bill or Inglourious Basterds. Harvey also drowns his film with familiar pop songs by the Raveonettes and the Kills. And, yes, he uses "U.R.A. Fever," which seems to appear in every other movie these days. Harvey also chooses the not-so-subtle "Queen Bitch" by David Bowie for Tes's intro. In a bizarre bit of kismet, Tes purchases a cassette copy of Bruce Willis's The Return of Bruno from a gas station and jams out to "Respect Yourself." Apparently, the joke was written into the script long before the filmmakers ever dreamed of casting Willis in the picture.

Speaking of John McClane, he looks rather bizarre as Mel the mobster. Sporting a bleached blonde soul patch and bad skin complexion, Mel struts around his mansion in a bathrobe while munching on pecans. That perfectly sums up just how deep the characterizations are in Catch .44. Everything is thinly sketched out with quirks and tics in place of fleshed out personality traits. For example, Ronny speaks with a faux Tony Montana accent while Kara always has her earbuds on.

Imagine if someone took the diner segment from Pulp Fiction and expanded it into a full-length movie, but sapped it of any life or originality. Wait, you don't have to Aaron Harvey did just that with Catch .44, a derivative direct-to-video bore that could have been cut and pasted from the pages Tarantino tossed into his recycle bin.

Rating: * (*****)

13

13 - Dir. Géla Babluani (2011)

Remakes happen all the time. On occasion, those remakes will be helmed by the director of the original movie. Cecil B. DeMille first made The Ten Commandments as a silent film in 1923 before his more iconic version in 1956 with Charlton Heston. Alfred Hitchcock did the same with The Man Who Knew Too Much, which he originally directed in 1934 then remade in 1956 as well. Both directors were more experienced and polished the second time around and the remakes have become more renowned than their predecessors. Those may be exceptions to the rule. More often than not, the remake is considered a lesser picture compared to the original. Michael Haneke's Funny Games is a prime example though I'm not a fan of either version. The Pang Brothers' Bangkok Dangerous, which featured the unique concept of a hitman who was deaf. For the American remake starring Nicolas Cage, the lead was no longer deaf and the results were met with derision. This brings us to 13, a remake of 13 Tzameti, both of which were directed by Georgian-French filmmaker Géla Babluani.

Vince Ferro (Sam Riley) is an electrician whose family is drowning in debt. They are unable to make mortgage payments on their home and Vince's father requires expensive medical care. He overhears his employer discuss a lucrative opportunity after receiving a mysterious envelope. When said employer overdoses on heroin, Vince steals the letter and follows the byzantine instructions while unknowingly eluding the police.

Vince is taken to a ritzy mansion in the countryside and is shocked to learn he has become a participant (number 13) in a high stakes game of Russian roulette. The contestants are given a single bullet then stand in a circle and forced to aim a gun at the back of the next man's head. The survivors are given one more bullet with each successive round. The final round is a face to face duel between the last men standing. All the while, gangsters and wealthy ne'er do wells bet millions of dollars on who will live and die.

The majority of the competitors remain anonymous, but the narrative does delve into the back stories of two others. Mickey Rourke plays Jefferson, an American locked up in a Mexican prison after a heist who is shanghaied into the game. Ray Winstone is Ronald, who won last year's tournament and is checked out of a mental hospital by his brother, Jasper (Jason Statham).

Released in 2005, the original 13 was a minimalist noir shot in stark black and white. Babluani's film was a prescient parable about the wealthy elite exploiting the middle and lower classes. His remake is little more than empty imitation. For a movie where the stakes are life and death, 13 surprisingly lacks any tension. The original had a genuine sense of claustrophobia and you could almost smell the sweat on the brows of the players. Here, you just want the movie to hurry up and get on with it. Meanwhile, the histories of Jefferson and Ronald are dropped clumsily into the story. While Ronald and Jasper play relevant roles in the third act, Jefferson's didn't even need to be there.

13 has a stellar cast in its favor. Sam Riley, who was impressive as doomed Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis in Control, gives a strong performance as Vince. There are also solid turns from Rourke, Winston, Jason Statham, Michael Shannon as the emcee, Ben Gazzara as a dapper gambler, Alexander Skarsgard as Vince's handler, and David Zayas as a police detective. The worst performance, however, comes from rapper Curtis "50 Cent' Jackson, who might want to spend some money on acting lessons after his embarrassingly wooden turn here.

Despite an ensemble cast of name actors, 13 sat on the shelves for over a year before being released directly to video. 13 isn't so much a bad movie as it is a bland one where everyone involved seem to be going through the motions.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Blitz

Blitz - Dir. Elliott Lester (2011)

Jason Statham kicked off his acting career by appearing in comedic crime films for Guy Ritchie. Since then, he has grown into a recognizable action star looking to fill in the holes left by the aging heroes of the past like Arnold and Stallone. Statham has the steely gaze and charisma to make most of the B-grade scripts he picks watchable. Blitz isn't one of them.

Statham plays an uncouth, violent, and politically incorrect London police officer by the name of Detective Sgt. Tom Brant. In the opening sequence, Brant beats the crap out of a trio of muggers with a hurling stick. He gets chewed out by his superior officer for the incident as well as for other uses of excessive force. Their attentions are quickly turned to a serial killer calling himself Blitz (Aiden Gillen), who is targeting cops in sudden and brutal fashion. Brant is paired up with Inspector Porter Nash (Paddy Considione), who is looked down upon by other officers due to his homosexuality. Nash is the well-mannered and well-dressed opposite of Brant. They're the British, crime-solving Odd Couple.

Blitz plods along with a dull predictability and without an iota of suspense or surprise. In fact, the film comes off as a glorified prime time pilot with the resolution tying up loose ends in a trite manner. Pointless subplots are used to pad out the running time such as one involving a uniformed officer (Zawe Ashton) trying to kick a drug habit she picked up while undercover and a romantically interested detective (Luke Evans).

In the end, Blitz is nothing more than a forgettable knockoff of Dirty Harry.

Rating: * (*****)

Kill the Irishman

Kill the Irishman - Dir. Jonathan Hensleigh (2011)

"...if any of these maggots in the so-called mafia want to come after me, I'm not a hard man to find."

Cleveland is known as the home of the Indians and the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. Most folks don't realize that the city was also known as a hotbed for the mafia back in the 70's. In fact, Cleveland earned the dubious nickname of "Bomb City, USA" due to the violent struggle between rival mob factions and their use of bombs as the preferred method of murder. Thirty-six explosions were set off in 1976 alone. Hip deep in the thick of things was an Irish gangster by the name of Danny Greene, who serves as the basis for Kill the Irishman, a fictionalized account of those violent events. Kill the Irishman was co-written and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh, who also wrote and directed The Punisher, starring Thomas Jane in the titular role. Oddly enough, the star of his newest film is Ray Stevenson, who took over as Marvel's premiere vigilante in the sequel/reboot, Punisher: War Zone.

Stevenson plays Greene as a physically imposing man with a barrel chest and a shock of strawberry blonde hair. His rise in the world of organized crime began as the head of the dockworkers' union. To consolidate power, Greene struck a deal with the Italians in exchange for goods pilfered from errant shipping containers. It was through this relationship that Greene met John Nardi (Vincent D'Onofrio), who would become one of his staunchest allies and the only Mafioso that actually liked the Irishman. A scathing news article exposed Greene's corruption and he was banned from the union for life. He escaped jail time by agreeing to become an FBI informant. In real life, Greene was one of the highest profile informants for the feds along with Whitey Bulger, the recently arrested mob boss who served as an inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character in The Departed.

Greene would eventually work as a leg breaker for notorious loan shark Shondor Birns (Christopher Walken). A sour business transaction would end their relationship and ignite a blood feud between a mafia desperate to retain control of the city against Greene's gang, which was quickly consolidating power. After surviving multiple attempts upon his life, including an explosion in his home, Greene brazenly dared the mob to come after him during a televised interview. Of course, the all good things must come to an end.

Kill the Irishman is a familiar story told in a familiar way and full of familiar faces. To put it bluntly, it's a knockoff of Scorsese films and assorted episodes of The Sopranos. Hensleigh recycles plenty of ideas from movies like Mean Streets and Goodfellas. There's a montage showing Greene's rise to power and chart-topping pop songs ironically contrasting violent scenes. The dialogue consists of clichéd tough guy lines like, "Your enemies are my enemies."

Pretty much anyone who has ever played a gangster is in Kill the Irishman. There's Walken, D'Onofrio, Paul Sorvino, Steven Schirripa, Mike Starr, Tony Lo Bianco, Robert Davi, Tony Darrow, and Vinny Vella, along with Vinnie Jones (sporting an awful looking tan and an even worse Irish accent) and Bob Gunton. Linda Cardellini takes on the Lorraine Bracco role of the put upon wife who can only stand by her man for so long. Finally, Val Kilmer appears as Det. Manditski, a former childhood acquaintance of Greene's who serves as narrator. This cast of noted character actors is the film's sole saving grace and serves as fine support for a strong performance by Stevenson. The former Titus Pullo imbues the role of Danny Greene with a natural charisma, even if the character is thinly written. Greene is painted as a Robin Hood figure and a blue-collar underdog in t-shirts and jeans defiant against the elitist Italians in their tailored suits.

Hensleigh adds to the authenticity by dotting the narrative with archival news footage of the actual events.

Kill the Irishman fails to live up to the renowned gangster pics it tries so hard to emulate. It's neither original nor memorable, but is worth a look because of a game and talented cast. Hey, Christopher Walken is always fun to watch.

Rating: ** (*****)

The Town

The Town - Dir. Ben Affleck (2010)

”I’ll see you again, on this side or the other.”

As an actor, Ben Affleck won’t be remembered in the same breath as Clint Eastwood. However, as a director, Affleck is almost assured the same longevity. Affleck made a strong debut in his first directorial effort with the Dennis Lehane adaptation, Gone Baby Gone, a film not too different from Eastwood’s own adaptation, Mystic River.

The Town isn’t based on a novel by Lehane (it’s based on The Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan), but it shares similar themes. The action shifts from Gone Baby Gone’s Dorchester to Charlestown, a section of Boston just north of the city proper and once a breeding ground for bank robbers. Affleck stars as Doug MacRay, the brains behind a quartet of stick-up artists. His right-hand man is childhood friend James “Jem” Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), a hothead whose rash actions initiate the film’s central plot.

The film opens with the crew holding up a bank. When a silent alarm is tripped, Jem takes bank president Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) hostage, making their getaway, and dropping her off soon after. Doug agrees to keep a close on her after learning Claire lives a mere four blocks away from them. There’s a quick meet cute in a Laundromat as Doug becomes a strong shoulder for the vulnerable Claire to cry on. In turn, she becomes a chance for Doug to escape his old life. She's a far cry from his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Krista (Blake Lively), a drug-addled single mother and sister to Jem. With a tanned face caked in make-up, she's like the baby version of Amy Ryan's character in Gone Baby Gone.

The Town consists of many familiar elements of the crime drama, but the film is so well-crafted that it surpasses conventions. Affleck's knowledge and love of the city comes through in every frame shot. His action sequences (which are a dash of Michael Mann, a dash of John Frankenheimer) are skillfully composed without resorting to overused techniques like the shakycam. After the opening bank job, the next set piece is an armored car heist leading into a rousing car chase through the narrow Bostonian streets. It culminates in an out of left field, but very funny, conclusion. The Town climaxes in a daring daylight robbery of Fenway Park.

Affleck and the wonderful Rebecca Hall are great in their roles, even if their relationship isn't as interesting as Doug's interactions with his cohorts, in particular Jeremy Renner's Jem. The Oscar nominated star of The Hurt Locker seems to channel the spirit of James Cagney in his portrayal of the volatile Jem. However, he's a puppy dog compared to Pete Postlethwaite who plays the role of crime boss Fergie the Florist with a menacing restraint. Chris Cooper nearly blows everybody else away in his lone scene as Doug's father who is serving a life sentence for a double murder. Jon Hamm (fulfilling the legal obligation to include a cast member of Mad Men in every movie) rounds out the cast in a rather thin role as the FBI agent on Doug's trail.

Rating: ***

Harry Brown

Harry Brown - Dir. Daniel Barber (2009)


Now, this is the kind of role I want to see Michael Caine play. Following in the footsteps of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, Caine takes up the mantle of the septuagenarian avenger in Harry Brown. This isn’t Caine’s first foray into the revenge film. He famously starred in one of the best revenge movies (and one of my favorite films of all time) in Get Carter.

As Jack Carter, Caine played a suave, yet vicious, gangster searching for his brother’s killer in the seedy underbelly of Newcastle. In Harry Brown, Caine is a former Royal Marine collecting his pension and living in the council estates (the British equivalent of the projects) in South London. It is a very ugly and dehumanizing world that Harry Brown lives in. At least Newcastle had a working class charm to it, the estates of Harry Brown have an ultra-modern brutalism to it. The building he lives in looks almost like a filing cabinet where society’s castoffs are stuffed in and quickly forgotten. The film was shot on location in the Heygate Estate which bares similar architecture to the infamous car park from Get Carter. Just like the car park, the Estate has been torn down to make way for gentrified reconstruction.

Harry Brown opens in a shocking manner with an amateur video recording of two drugged out youths joy riding on their bikes and shooting off a gun. They terrorize a mother pushing a stroller and unintentionally kill her before being struck down by a truck while fleeing the scene. The area is rife with crime and drugs thanks to the local youth gangs.

Brown lives alone in his apartment while his wife lays comatose in the hospital. He is late for her dying moments after taking the long way because the local hoods gather around a more convenient underpass. The last straw comes when Harry’s best friend and drinking buddy, Leonard (David Bradley) is murdered. The investigating detective (Emily Mortimer) has her suspects, but not enough evidence to arrest them. So Harry dusts off his old service pistol, goes for a walk in the middle of a night, and winds up killing a mugger in self-defense. With a new purpose, Harry is dead set on hunting down Leonard’s killers.

In one of the film’s most unsettling scenes, Harry attempts to purchase guns from a drug dealer frighteningly realized by Sean Harris (who played Ian Curtis in 24 Hour Party People). Harry strikes an uneasy deal as homemade pornography plays on the TV and an OD’d girl lays sprawled out on the sofa.

Even though he’s close to 80 years of age, Michael Caine can still make you believe he can kick your ass. And he probably could. He is easily capable of switching from hardassed to heartfelt. Director Daniel Barber (in his feature-length debut) and writer Gary Young (who also penned the DTV actioner The Tournament) have created a very nasty world for Harry Brown.

However, the film has very little to add to the genre. Harry Brown doesn’t have the deeper meaning of Gran Torino. It doesn’t transcend the trappings of its ‘Kill ‘em all and let God sort it out’ philosophy. More sensitive types may bemoan the way the film reinforces the fascistic overtones common with vigilante pictures.

Rating: ** ½

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom - Dir. David Michod (2010)


Animal Kingdom is the grimy, blue collar reflection of the Godfather-style sprawling crime drama, coming to us from the Land Down Under. The film is loosely based on an actual case.

Writer/Director David Michod (who makes his feature-length directorial debut) sets the mood immediately with the introduction of Joshua "J" Cody (James Frecheville) sitting on the couch next to his comatose mother. EMTs arrive and we learn the mother has OD'd on heroin. J's attention drifts in between their futile attempts to revive her and an episode of Deal or No Deal on the TV.

J is sent to live with his mom's estranged family who she tried hard to stay far away from. J comes from a family of bank robbers. His eldest uncle, Pope (Ben Mendelsohn), is in hiding from the corrupt Armed Robbery division who shoot first and ask questions later. The middle brother, Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), is strung out on coke while the youngest, Darren (Luke Ford), follows the others like a lost puppy. He's so close to age with J that he refuses to be called Uncle Darren. The Cody brothers work with Barry Brown (Joel Edgerton who also co-wrote and starred in The Square), a stable family man looking to get out of the business. The matriarch of the Cody family is Janine (Jacki Weaver), a petite woman with arching eyebrows who plants prolonged kisses on the lips of her sons. She's Florence Henderson on the outside, but we soon learn she's black as night on the inside.

When Barry is gunned down by the gung-ho cops, Pope and Craig hatch a plan to get even by murdering two patrolmen. Darren and J are dragged into the muck with them. The investigating officer, Det. Leckie (Guy Pearce, sporting a goofy mustache), seems to genuinely be concerned about J, but has no problem using him to drive a wedge within the family. J finds himself caught between the law and his amoral relatives.

As the title suggests, the film is all about a pecking order with J at the bottom of the food chain. The passive protagonist is forced to become predator or prey. Michod is economic in his focus on the familial relationships. He never shows the Cody clan in action nor does he take us into the courtroom drama that unfolds during the third act. They aren't needed. However, Michod stumbles when he overplays his hand. He underlines the movie with unnecessary voiceover narration by J as he explains themes and story elements that are transparent. Animal Kingdom becomes excessively dour to the point of self-parody. Pope's increasing instability is summed up in a scene where he broods menacingly to the tune of "All Out of Love" by Air Supply. As the passive lead, J is only as interesting as the more compelling characters he's surrounded by. Once he becomes the center of the film, his innate inertia isn't enough to carry the picture.

Rating: **

Takers

Takers - Dir. John Luessenhop (2010)


While Inception was an original, high concept take on the heist film, Takers is an entirely unoriginal and derivative entry into the genre.

Idris Elba is Gordon Cozier, the leader of the crew and a slicker, high-class version of Elba’s Stringer Bell from The Wire. He dresses to the nines and lives in a penthouse apartment. His comrades include right-hand man John (the always bland Paul Walker) and the brothers Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse (Chris Brown). Jake runs a nightclub while his younger brother is the team’s hotshot youngster. Finally, there’s A.J. (the equally bland Hayden Christensen) who is both the team tough guy and the one who wears the hat.

After a successful bank robbery, the gang is approached by Ghost (rapper Tip “T.I.” Harris who is also one of the film’s producers), a former member just released from prison. Ghost was shot and left for dead on his last job, but never squealed on his pals. He proposes a lucrative armored car heist, having ascertained the driver’s route from some Russian gangsters. Matt Dillon and Jay Hernandez play a pair of LAPD detectives in charge of capturing the thieves.

Takers is all about good looking guys dressing in expensive suits and drinking expensive champagne. It is an out and out guys’ movie with very little room for women. There are only two female characters of any real importance. Zoe Saldana is cast as Rachel, Ghost’s former girlfriend who is now with Jake. She’s hot off Star Trek and Avatar, but only appears in maybe 3 scenes in the movie. There’s also Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who earned an Oscar nomination for Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies, as Gordon’s drug-addicted sister. Her subplot feels like padding and an empty attempt at fleshing out the thin characters.

The same can be said for a subplot involving Dillon’s workaholic cop who is also dogged by Internal Affairs. At one point, he’s supposed to be spending the day with his daughter. Instead, he follows the suspects with the girl forced to ride along. The asides are just pointless little detours from the main narrative that don’t go anywhere.

The center piece for any heist film is the planning and build up to the actual heist. Takers unapologetically cribs from The Italian Job and not even the original, but the remake. In fact, one of the characters references that they’re going to pull an “Italian Job.” Number one rule of references, never reference a movie that’s better than yours, especially one you wish you’d rather be watching.

The film’s biggest set piece is a Parkour inspired foot chase with Chris Brown bouncing across the streets of L.A. The sequence would probably be cool if the director and editor had any idea how to cut it together. The scene is absolutely butchered by ADD editing and vertigo inducing shaky camera work. It looks as if it were shot by Paul Greengrass after he was injected with Parkinson’s. John Luessenhop manages to toss in nearly every corny cliché in the action movie playbook. Heroes walking away from an explosion without looking back? Check. Mexican standoff? Check. Not enough for you? How about Hayden Christensen diving through the air and shooting his gun in slow motion?

Takers is hollow and dull, a Michael Mann knockoff for the undiscerning 21st century youth.

Rating: *

Brooklyn's Finest

Brooklyn's Finest - Dir. Antoine Fuqua (2010)


Director Antoine Fuqua began his career by helming music videos for artists such as Prince, Usher, and Coolio. He graduated to feature filmmaking with Chow Yun-Fat’s debut in Hollywood, The Replacement Killers. Fuqua scored big with the gritty cop drama, Training Day, which was bolstered by an Oscar-winning performance from Denzel Washington as the dirty cop to end all dirty cops. Fuqua returns to the urban drama with Brooklyn’s Finest, featuring three separate storylines set in the projects of Brownsville in Brooklyn, New York.

Fuqua reunites with Training Day star Ethan Hawke for the first storyline. Hawke is Det. Sal Procida who finds an honest cop’s salary isn’t covering the bills. He’s got three kids, a pregnant wife (Lili Taylor) with asthma and twins on the way, and a house that’s too small with mold in the walls. In order to make ends meet, Sal has been taking money from drug busts. When we first meet him, he puts a bullet into the head of one criminal before robbing him.

Don Cheadle is Det. Clarence “Tango” Butler, an undercover cop who’s been out in the field too long. All he wants is a cushy desk job and a chance to get his live back. That chance may come when Tango’s old friend, Casanova “Caz” Phillips (Wesley Snipes), is released from prison. The feds and Tango’s C.O. want him to set Caz up in a sting operation so they can boot him back to the penitentiary for no other reason than he’d be a big bust. Tango is deeply conflicted as Caz had saved his life and genuinely seems to want to go straight.

Richard Gere is Eddie Dugan, a uniformed cop and veteran on the force. He’s led an unremarkable career and is only days away from retirement. He finds solace at the bottom of a whiskey bottle and in the arms of a prostitute (Shannon Kane) who is the furthest thing from Julia Roberts. The brass wants Eddie to mentor a few rookies and he’s reluctant about it. Eddie’s advice to his first rookie is ”…eyes open and keep walking.” The rookie is disgusted with Eddie’s utter apathy to the job, but Eddie has absolutely no desire to be a hero.

The cast also includes Will Patton as Tango’s commanding officer, Ellen Barkin as a federal agent, Brian F. O’Byrne as Sal’s partner, and The Wire’s Michael K. Williams as one of Caz’s partners in crime. The screenplay was penned by first-timer Michael C. Martin who was a train conductor for the New York subway. He was still working his day job up until a week before shooting.

There have been quite a lot of these multi-tiered pictures in recent years. Crash, Syriana, and Babel are probably the most high-profile while other films like The Air I Breathe, Powder Blue, Crossing Over, and The Burning Plain failed to garner similar critical acclaim. Brooklyn’s Finest will likely fall into the latter category.

Brooklyn’s Finest is essentially a collection of nearly every cop movie cliché. At first glance, the only thing missing is the perpetually angry police captain. We have world weary cops, religiously conflicted cops, dirty cops, clean cops, experienced cops, rookie cops, etc. The film lacks any sort of nuances or deeper layers. The stories run parallel to each other though Fuqua and Martin toss in a few obligatory scenes where the characters bump into each other, both figuratively and literally. All three plot threads build to a contrived conclusion in which the trio of main characters arrives in the same neighborhood at the same time to meet their fates.

Brooklyn’s Finest treads into more than familiar territory. The acting is strong and the most interesting scenes feature the always-dependable Don Cheadle and Wesley Snipes who play well off each other. Snipes hasn’t starred in a theatrical release since Blade: Trinity and this is a welcome return. It is unfortunate the material is so weak and formulaic.

Rating: **

44 Inch Chest

44 Inch Chest - Dir. Malcolm Venville (2009)


Don’t take the title of this film the wrong way. 44 Inch Chest is not about a buxom starlet by the name of Chesty Larue or Hootie McBoob. No, this film is all about men. Manly men. Manly men who speak with British accents. That’s how you know someone is a badass when they speak with a tough British accent.

44 Inch Chest comes to us from director Malcolm Venville and screenwriters Louis Mellis and David Scinto who penned the amazing gangster pic Sexy Beast. That film gave us Ben Kingsley in his anti-Gandhi performance as a maniacal criminal who refuses to take no for an answer. Kingsley isn’t anywhere to be found, but Ray Winstone is back with an all-star collection of English hard men. You’ve got Ian McShane, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, and Stephen Dillane. Prepare to choke on the testosterone.

Chest opens stylishly and succinctly sets the tone for the rest of the picture with Winstone as Colin Diamond laying nearly-catatonic amidst the wreckage that was once his home. Harry Nilsson’s cover of Badfinger’s “Without You” plays on a loop. Colin’s wife, Liz (Joanne Whalley), has dropped a bombshell on him. She doesn’t love him anymore and is leaving him for another man.

He returns home from work when his wife, Liz (Joanne Whalley), drops a bombshell on him. She’s no longer in love with Colin and she’s leaving him for another man. Colin runs a gamut of emotions from despair to remorse to anger. From there, he does what any man would do. Colin rounds up a group of his buddies to abduct the man having an affair with his wife. Archie (Wilkinson) is the most level-headed of the bunch, a nice guy who still lives with his mother. Archie’s polar opposite is Peanut (John Hurt), a misogynistic and homophobic septuagenarian on a constant conniption fit. Playing as a foil to Peanut is Meredith (McShane), an ultra-sophisticated and gay gambler. Finally, there’s the suave Mal (Dillane) who may or may not have had his own fling with Liz.

The unfortunate individual that is the target of Colin’s hatred is a hunk of beefcake only referred to as Loverboy (Melvil Poupaud). He never says a single word in the movie, but he’s young, handsome, and, dear lord, he’s French. The gang has Loverboy locked up in a wardrobe before tying him up to a chair where he’s subjected to verbal and physical abuse.

That’s the loose summary of the plot. The main narrative is broken up with various flashbacks and fantasy sequences. The most bizarre and disturbing moment has to be seeing John Hurt’s head on Joanne Whalley’s body. Another wonderful sequence finds Meredith smoothly recounting a winning night at the casino. The dialogue is one of the highlights of the film. Everyone speaks with hard R words that sound like David Mamet filtered through Harold Pinter.

The title evokes images of men bowing up with their chests puffed out. For Colin, it’s all about regaining his manhood after the utterly emasculating dissolution of his marriage. Each of the friends he’s gathered seems to represent different aspects of his psyche. Some cool and collected others hot-headed. However, much of the male bravado is a showy falsehood. Never is this more evident than in Peanut whose bark is far worse than his bite. The façade shatters when Peanut launches into another of his profanity-laced tirades and his dentures drop out of his mouth.

Let us not forget the woman at the center of all the controversy. Joanne Whalley looks exceptionally gorgeous in this film. Surrounded by wafting cigarette smoke and clad in a slinky, black dress, she looks like the femme fatale out of a classic film noir.

44 Inch Chest is a mixed bag. The dialogue is sharp and the acting is excellent with McShane and Hurt being particularly entertaining. However, Chest can’t shake the feeling of being little more than a play in front of the cameras. The script also feels a little light then padded out to be feature length.

Rating: ** ½

The Square

The Square - Dir. Nash Edgerton (2008)


Everytime I think of Australia, I think of that episode of The Simpsons. However, the Aussies have more to offer the world than bootings, Crocodile Dundee, and Yahoo Serious. They’ve given us film noir down under-style with The Square. Directed by actor/stuntman Nash Edgerton, the screenplay was co-written by brother Joel and Matthew Dabner. The Edgerton’s work has already drawn comparisons to the Coen Brothers and their debut film, Blood Simple.

The Square follows the classic noir formula of films like The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. The formula centers on a man who thinks with his dick instead of his head, commiting an ever escalating series of crimes all for the love of a woman. In this case, The Square follows Raymond Yale (David Roberts), a construction foreman who is engaged in an affair with his neighbor, Carla Smith (Claire van der Boom), who is married to a low-rent, white trash crook named Smithy (Anthony Hayes). How white trash is he? He has a mullet.

Raymond takes kickbacks on the job in order to save enough money for the two to run away together. Carla grows impatient by the day. The answer to her prayers comes one fateful day when she spies Smithy stashing away a duffel bag full of cash. Carla convinces Raymond to steal the money. The originally reluctant Raymond hires an arsonist (Joel Edgerton) to burn the house down to cover up the theft. A serious of unfortunate events leads to the arsonist burning the house down with Smithy’s mother asleep inside. The web of deceit is pulled in tighter when Ray begins receiving blackmail letters. Suspicion grows on all sides building and building to a tragic conclusion.

The Edgertons offer nothing new to the genre. The characters are one-dimensional and unsympathetic and the story familiar. What the Edgertons have done well is create the mood. The dark happenings of the plot are set against the backdrop of a seemingly sleepy suburban neighborhood built along the banks of a river that’s possibly shark infested. The tension mounts with the passing of every scene keeping the characters and the audience on their toes.

Rating: ***

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans - Dir. Werner Herzog (2009)


”It’s my lucky crack pipe. You don’t have a lucky crack pipe?”

Abel Ferrera’s original Bad Lieutenant was a gritty, unflinching portrayal of a corrupt cop with themes of Catholic guilt and uneasy redemption. Harvey Keitel played the unnamed titular character with an uncompromising bravery in depicting the Lieutenant’s disturbing demons. Werner Herzog claims to have not been aware of the original film and his version is neither a remake nor a reboot. The script was written by William M. Finkelstein whose credits include a number of television shows such as L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, and…Cop Rock. Under the unwieldy title of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, Herzog crafts a film that isn’t so much disturbing as it is an oddball black comedy hinged around the human medical experiment known as Nicolas Cage.

Cage’s eccentric, idiosyncratic performances have been both lauded and blasted by critics. At his insistence, he ate a live cockroach in Vampire’s Kiss (it was supposed to be a raw egg) and his ”Not the bees!” act in the Wicker Man remake has become popular YouTube fodder. Here, Herzog manages to harness the innate weirdo in Cage into a calculated craziness that is utterly compelling.

”What are these fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?”

Cage is Terence McDonagh, a police detective in New Orleans shortly after the city was savaged by Hurricane Katrina. During the storms, he rescued (though after much debate) a prisoner trapped in his cell as the water rose dangerously high. McDonagh suffers a back injury that leaves him addicted to painkillers and other drugs. It’s highly doubtful, however, that he was that nice of a guy before the injury. Awarded a medal and promoted to lieutenant, McDonagh is put in charge of a homicide case where a Senegalese family was murdered by local drug dealer Big Fate (rapper Xzibit). When he’s not investigating, McDonagh is stealing narcotics from the evidence room and suffers from addled hallucinations of iguanas. He’s deep in gambling debts and inadvertently pisses off a vengeful mobster. When McDonagh is investigating the case, he strong arms a wheelchair-bound, old lady by cutting off her respirator and waving a .44 Magnum in her face. One night, he rousts a pair of club kids and finds a miniscule amount of drugs on their person. He forces the boyfriend to watch as he smokes crack and bangs his girlfriend on the hood of his unmarked police car.

McDonagh has a high-class prostitute girlfriend, Frankie (Eva Mendes), who he eventually hides out with his father. Dad (Tom Bower) is a recovering alcoholic who lives with his ever-soused wife (Jennifer Coolidge) in a mansion in the woods. On the outside, the home is like something out of a Tennessee Williams play, but inside it has all the dark, gloomy charm of a double-wide trailer.

”Shoot him again. His soul is still dancing.”

Cage is at his bug-eyed best in Bad Lieutenant. He lumbers about in a stooped stride like he’s the love child of Dirty Harry and Quasimodo. His voice sometimes drifts into a high-pitched tone similar to the Pokey-inspired voice Cage put on in Peggy Sue Got Married. McDonagh is an ugly human being perfectly at home in the underbelly of a city still struggling to rebuild following a devastating natural disaster. While Cage goes as over-the-top as he possibly can, he’s balanced out by the understated performances of Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer as a fellow detective, and classic character actor Brad Dourif as McDonagh’s pony-tailed bookie.

Herzog adds a surreal touch to the picture with a reptilian fetish that includes a strange, yet haunting, scene at a traffic accident with a gator lying in the middle of the road with its intestines on the asphalt and a single leg twitching. There’s also an interlude of extreme close-ups of iguanas set to Johnny Adams’ “Release Me.”

Port of Call is at its weakest during the third act. The film’s resolution comes out of left field with its happily-ever-after denouement. Everything seems to end for the better and you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is this a happy ending or another one of McDonagh’s crack-induced fever dreams? Honestly, the story is secondary to watching Nic Cage at his Nic Cage-iest.

Rating: ** ½

RocknRolla

RocknRolla - Dir. Guy Ritchie (2008)


The well may have run dry, but that hasn’t stopped Ritchie from dipping into it once more. Thrust yet again into the London underworld, we are introduced to an ensemble of ruthless gangsters and incompetent crooks. There’s an overly complicated real estate scam, stolen cash, a stolen painting, and the search for a drugged out rock star.

Ritchie has been reluctant to grow as a filmmaker ever since making his big splash on the Post-Tarantino cinematic landscape with Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. He’s essentially remade the same film three times. Then again, when he did try to stretch his directing muscles, he made the universally reviled Swept Away.

With RocknRolla, the former Mr. Madonna’s flaws show more and more. MTV style editing and fancy camera tricks act as feints for otherwise bland sequences. Ritchie stuffs his script with far too many subplots and characters in a vain attempt to bolster his page count. The only way to distinguish any of those characters is by arbitrarily goofy nicknames like One Two, Mumbles, and Johnny Quid. It won’t be by their well-rounded personalities since they have none.

To Ritchie’s credit, he still manages to collect a wealth of talented actors to play his cartoonish characters. Not all of them are properly utilized, the usually entertaining Jeremy Piven turns in a bland performance, for example. As one of the hottest accountants in the world, Thandie Newton displays a sexy cool that might be the closest we’ll ever get to a gangland Audrey Hepburn. I also enjoyed Mark Strong’s (also great in Body of Lies and Stardust) excellent turn as our narrator and the right-hand man of Lenny Cole played to perfection by Tom Wilkinson (”There’s no school like the old school.”).

Rating: **

Last Man Standing

Last Man Standing - Dir. Walter Hill (1996)

The definition of guilty pleasure.

Yojimbo remake melded with the film noir voice of Raymond Chandler and the two-fisted gunplay of John Woo.

Walter Hill remains a fantastic, yet underrated, action director.